WIREDGOV

This week, the Science and Tech Committee published their report 'Bleeding to death: the science and technology growth emergency', a report into financing and scaling UK science and technology. The report cautions the government that the UK's inability to retain and expand its science and technology firms has become critically urgent, severely damaging the nation's economic health. 

You can see the full report here. 

techUK welcome the reports recognition that the UK has many of the foundations in place for to scale the ‘next trillion-dollar technology business’. But we recognise the urgency for the government to act to fix the blockers to scale, retain the economic benefits of R&D in the UK, and to seize opportunities for this government’s imperative to deliver on economic growth. Just this week, techUK explored this very topic with our members at our Tech and Innovation Summit hearing from innovative scale-ups including Pragmatic Semiconductor and Genomics.   

We further welcome many of the recommendations productive visa policies, greater risk appetite and reforms to public procurement. Many of these align with techUK’s recommendations for the government ahead of the Autumn Budget. 

The scale of the challenge 

It is well documented that the UK has world-class universities, strong early-stage venture capital, and a thriving ecosystem of innovators and start-ups. However, the UK continues to be caught in what the report calls a ‘doom loop’ with shallow capital pools, risk-averse institutional investors, and undervalued technology companies that creates a perfect storm pushing promising tech firms overseas. 

The statistics are further alarming. Companies looking to scale up struggle to find late-stage capital from the UK; pension funds now allocate less than 5% to domestic equities, down from 50% in 1997. In the US, 72% of venture capital comes from pension funds while in the UK, this is just 10%. Alongside this, of the top ten global universities, only three of the top 100 industrial R&D spenders globally and none in the top ten.  

Meanwhile, the UK’s capital markets are not working as well as they should be. Companies list overseas with the perception that higher valuations are available there, which reduces activity and capital in the UK market, perpetuating a vicious in the first eight months of 2025, only seven UK companies listed on the London Stock Exchange compared with 129 in the US. 

During the inquiry, Lord Mair (Chair of the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee) highlights that several significant companies including Oxford Ionics, Deliveroo and Wise have relocated or expanded abroad.

Click here for the full press release