The UK tech sector’s response to last month’s Autumn Budget was mixed: while many welcomed the expanded investment incentives, concerns about the overall tax burden remain.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ budget was the government’s strongest opportunity to directly address the needs of the UK’s business community, but as revealed in a recent roundtable hosted by RSM in partnership with UKTN, tech leaders believe more can be done to achieve Labour’s economic growth ambitions.
Regulatory innovation must go further
The government has shown a desire to drastically reform the regulatory landscape, with an emphasis on innovation and efficiency over complex administrative procedures.
This goal has been embraced by the tech community; however, leading figures have noted that current efforts to improve the UK’s regulatory framework to support global competitiveness have not gone far enough.
Speaking at the recent roundtable, Dr Samantha Torrence, head of global government advisory at Access Partnership, acknowledged the value of the Regulatory Innovation Office (RIO).
Launched last year, RIO serves as a body to both join up the efforts of disparate regulatory bodies and offer support in streamlining processes, assessing shortfalls and ultimately cutting red tape.
“That is quite unique in a global regulatory setting – having regulators across the board that are directly overseeing tech and digital issues,” Torrence said.
“The governments that I advise look to the UK as a first leader in that sense.”
However, Torrence argued that regulatory innovation must go hand-in-hand with financial incentives to achieve the appropriate scale of change.
“We lack scale on the capital and investment side. Regulatory framework is required to support that,” Torrence said, pointing to Singapore as an exemplar.
“Singapore is very much focused on principles-based regulation. They have set up an environment for experimentation that they support and actively participate in, and they have the capital to help scale that innovation going forward,” she said.
There are also concerns from businesses that regardless of the good intentions behind regulatory policy, the issue is in the implementation.
Grant Smith, VP of technology at Trustpilot pointed to the example of cookies regulation in the UK, an expensive rollout that lacked clear goals and continues to struggle with ensuring compliance.
“The government had an objective,” Smith said. “But they didn’t come close to meeting it. I am not for the regulation; I am for protecting consumers. There must be clarity around what implementation looks like.”
Competing on a complex global stage
For many tech leaders, the issues affecting the UK tech industry are compounded by the fact that, globally, the country faces significant competition.
From the low-tax havens such as the United Arab Emirates and rapidly developing tech ecosystems in Europe, to the ever-present behemoth of the US tech industry, Britain’s business leaders are concerned that the government is not taking the threat of an entrepreneurial exodus seriously enough.
“My whole friendship group, who are all entrepreneurs, have left [the UK],” Scott Weavers-Wright OBE, founder and chief executive of investment firm Haatch, said.
“When I visit Dubai, I see many very capable people drawn there by low taxes, minimal regulation, and a clear culture of drive and ambition. We need to reinvent the wheel in the UK because we used to be the leader.”
Weavers-Wright acknowledged that it would be unrealistic for the UK to impose the same tax policies on its businesses as those in Dubai, however, he argued that it is not the only option.
The US is a key example. The region has considerably higher business taxes than the UAE, however businesses have potential to thrive thanks to the amount of capital available.
“This is a real problem in the UK – our small cheques,” Weavers-Wright added.
“In order to compete, you do not have to be better than everybody. When I invest in the UK, the founders are hungry, intelligent, and have great ideas. There is a disconnect between them and the ambitions of the government.”
There is broad agreement that the implementation of targeted actions could reshape the landscape: investing in local talent, providing clear and focused regulation for key technologies, and reforming government procurement to better support UK tech firms.
Together, industry leaders agree that these measures would provide the essential steps toward strengthening the UK tech sector’s long-term competitiveness on a global stage.
Read more: Autumn Budget 2025: The key points for the UK tech industry
