What is Tech Nation?

by Startacus Admin

Tech City UK was created approx six years ago to make London a tech hub - the place to be for tech startups. It had great success in helping London become a flourishing tech ecosystem and, three years later, it expanded into the North, thereby creating Tech North.

By interconnecting all the tech hubs of London and the North of England, Tech City UK and Tech North helped elevate the region to ‘tech excellence’.

Now it is time to expand again across the UK. With government backing, Tech City UK and Tech North will become the not-for-profit Tech Nation and continue their work of connecting tech hubs (or clusters, as they are calling them) across 11 regions. Public and private funding will help Tech Nation create a strong tech network and raise that network’s profile through events and programmes. This rebrand will take effect at the start of the financial year, in April 2018.

We recently wrote about La French Tech, a similar movement in France. La French Tech has worked wonders for...well, French Tech, and helped them become one of the global leaders of the tech startup scene, outdoing the UK in terms of VC funding in the first half of 2017 and the number of fastest growing tech companies. 

To give a rounder picture of Tech Nation, and the general take on it, we have gathered together a handful of interesting articles about the upcoming organisation and the tech scene it hopes to interconnect and strengthen.

It makes sense to start with this rather good one from Tech City UK themselves, answering the top 10 questions regarding Tech Nation.

Brexit has made this a time of uncertainty and constant worry for many. The UK tech scene is likely to be hit particularly strongly by it, but will Tech Nation be able to strengthen UK tech enough to weather the storm? That is what Siliconrepublic asks in this article.

This article from Prolific North raises the question of what Tech Nation’s expansion across the UK, rather than just London and the North, means in terms of a possible dilution of focus compared to the previous targeted focus of Tech City UK and Tech North.

Continuing in the vein of balanced opinion, this Wired article shows that not everyone is happy about the way this government is handling the UK tech scene. Even the government backing of Tech Nation isn’t enough to garner confidence for everyone.

Lastly, according Business Matters, 1 in 5 London tech employees are considering moving out of the city to other hubs such as Birmingham, Sheffield, or Glasgow. This could prove beneficial for the overall economy as well as the push to expand the UK’s tech scene across the whole of the UK rather than localised within London and some of the North.

Let us know what you think of this rebrand of Tech City UK and Tech North to Tech Nation!

We think, thumbs up - its a good place to start. Removing barriers to entry, supporting and further connecting a 'whole' UK ecosystem, attract more global tech tech talent to the UK...they are all good things, so we look forward to seeing how this 'nationwide' brand expansion plays out over time.

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Published on: 10th December 2017