Research and analysis

Digital and Technologies Sector Statistics – Innovation Statistics

Published 4 June 2026

1. Summary

This release presents innovation statistics for the UK Digital and Technologies (D&T) sector, covering Innovate UK (IUK) funding, patenting activity, and university spinouts.

The D&T sector is one of the 8 priority sectors in the UK’s Modern Industrial Strategy. These statistics support monitoring and evaluation of the Digital and Technologies Sector Plan by providing evidence on innovation activity in the sector.

The statistics distinguish between the overall D&T sector and its frontier technology component and are based on business‑level administrative data from Innovate UK, the UK Intellectual Property Office (IPO), and the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA), using a sector‑list‑based definition of the D&T sector.

The statistics in this release constitute an ad-hoc statistics release. They are based on the latest available data for each source (2024 for Innovate UK and IPO and April 2026 for HESA spinouts). Future releases will incorporate revised figures.

These statistics should be used for:

• Assessing the scale and intensity of innovation activity within the UK D&T sector using comparable, business level administrative data.
• Comparing innovation metrics within this release between the D&T sector and its frontier technology component, as defined for this publication.

These statistics should not be used for: 

• Direct comparison of the D&T sector with other sectors defined using SIC codes, or with other countries.
• Estimating total R&D expenditure or overall innovation investment, as these metrics do not capture all private R&D or innovation finance.
• Interpreting Innovate UK awarded funding values as money received or final expenditure; the data reflect committed funding, and actual spend may differ.
• Treating patent counts as a comprehensive measure of D&T intellectual property or innovation activity, as they cover granted, in‑force IPO patents only and exclude patents filed with international patent organisations (e.g. the European Patent Office), other IP types and innovation outputs.

2. Headline Figures

• D&T companies were awarded £415 million across 1,193 Innovate UK grants in 2024, representing 24.7% of total Innovate UK funding that year.
• D&T companies were granted 1,521 IPO patents in 2024, accounting for 41.0% of patents granted by the IPO that year.
• As of April 2026, 655 D&T companies (0.6% of total D&T sector companies) were classified as university spinouts, representing 29.9% of total university spinouts in the UK.

3. Innovate UK Awarded Funding

Estimates produced using the latest available annual (2024) business-level data from Innovate UK (IUK) suggest that:

• D&T companies were awarded £415 million in IUK funding across 1,193 grants in 2024. Frontier technology companies accounted for £362 million across 911 grants (87.3% of D&T funding and 76.4% of D&T grants)
• As shown in Figure 1, D&T companies accounted for 24.7% of total IUK funding and 17.9% of total grants in 2024; frontier technology companies accounted for 21.6% and 13.7% respectively

Note: In this section, ‘awarded funding’ refers to the value of Innovate UK funding committed to projects, while ‘grants’ refers to the number of funded awards.

The value of IUK funding received in a given year may differ from the value awarded in that year, as companies can draw down funding from grants awarded in earlier years and awards made in 2024 may relate to multiyear projects.

Figure 1. Share of IUK Awarded grants attributed to the D&T sector, UK, 2024

4. IPO Patents Granted

Estimates using the latest available annual (2024) business-level data from the UK Intellectual Property Office (IPO) suggest that:

• 232 D&T companies were granted 1,521 IPO patents in 2024, of which 1,234 patents were granted to 168 frontier technology companies (frontier technologies account for 81.1% of total D&T sector IPO patents).
• As shown in Figure 2, D&T companies accounted for 41.0% of all patents granted by the IPO in 2024; frontier technology companies accounted for 33.2%.
• Patenting activity is more frequent among frontier technology companies than across the D&T sector overall: 1.5% of frontier technology companies were granted at least 1 IPO patent in 2024, compared with 0.2% of D&T companies.
• Patenting intensity is higher among frontier technology companies, measured by the average number of IPO patents granted per company (0.11 patents per frontier technology company in 2024, compared with 0.01 per D&T company).

Figure 2. Share of IPO granted patents attributable to the D&T sector, UK, 2024

5. University Spinouts

Estimates using business-level data, as of April 2026, from the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) suggest that:

• 655 companies in the UK D&T sector were classified as university spinouts as of April 2026, representing 0.6% of total D&T sector companies.
• Of these, 518 were frontier technology university spinouts, representing 4.7% of total frontier technology companies.
• As shown in Figure 3, D&T companies accounted for 29.9% of all UK university spinouts as of April 2026; frontier technology companies accounted for 23.7%.
• Spinout activity is concentrated among a small number of UK universities. The top ten universities by number of D&T sector spinouts are shown in Table 1 below.

Figure 3. Share of UK university spinouts attributable to the D&T sector, UK, April 2026

Table 1. Top 10 universities by number of D&T university spinouts, UK, April 2026

University	Number of D&T spinouts	% of all D&T spinouts	% of universities’ spinouts that are D&T	Number of FT spinouts	% of all FT spinouts	% of universities’ spinouts that are FT
University of Oxford	101	15.4%	44.9%	85	16.4%	37.8%
University of Cambridge	94	14.4%	34.7%	76	14.7%	28.0%
University College London	48	7.3%	40.3%	41	7.9%	34.5%
Imperial College London	31	4.7%	27.4%	29	5.6%	25.7%
University of Manchester	31	4.7%	28.7%	19	3.7%	17.6%
University of Bristol	27	4.1%	33.3%	24	4.6%	29.6%
University of Edinburgh	24	3.7%	40.7%	16	3.1%	27.1%
University of Southampton	17	2.6%	45.9%	14	2.7%	37.8%
University of Nottingham	16	2.4%	37.2%	11	2.1%	25.6%
University of Warwick	16	2.4%	43.2%	13	2.5%	35.1%

Note: “% of all D&T/FT spinouts” refers to the share of all digital and technology and frontier technology spinouts that originated from a given university. “% of a university’s spinouts that are D&T/FT” is a measure of intensity and refers to the share of that university’s spinouts that are digital and technology or frontier technology companies.

6. Technical Note

The statistics in this release are based on data from Innovate UK, IPO and HESA, reflecting the latest full year of available information for each dataset at the time of publication (2024 for IUK and IPO and as of April 2026 for HESA). These figures may be revised in future releases. Further detail on the data sources are provided in the accompanying technical report.

The sector classifications used to define the D&T Sector have been developed at different points in time. While some company lists relate to 2025, others draw on earlier definitions. Full details of the definitions and methodology, including strengths and limitations, are set out in the technical report.

7. Feedback 

This is an ad-hoc statistical release using exploratory methods to produce statistics for the D&T sector. We welcome feedback on both the statistics and methods used. Please contact: economicestimates@dsit.gov.uk.