Northern England tech ecosystem valued at $73bn in Dealroom report
Northern England's technology ecosystem is estimated to be worth nearly $73 billion, according to a new report from data and analytics firm Dealroom launched at the Northern Tech Summit in Sheffield. Despite that headline figure, regional leaders at the event warned that fragmented collaboration and persistent under-investment from venture capital are preventing the North from realising its full potential on the global stage.
The report's data cut across several dimensions. The North generated 503 university spin-out companies in the past twelve months alone, surpassing both Oxford and Cambridge. A quarter of all UK tech startups in advanced manufacturing and engineering founded over the same period were based in the North, and deep-tech investment in the region grew 10% while declining 23% nationally. Between 2020 and 2026, 91 northern deep-tech businesses secured funding, compared with 47 in Scotland and 10 in Wales.
The investment gap
The more sobering finding is structural. Venture capital directed at northern tech businesses accounted for just 3.7% of UK-wide VC deployment over the period studied, against 71% for London and 12% for Cambridge. Sixty-one per cent of funding received by northern companies came from UK-based investors, compared with 32% across the UK as a whole, suggesting the region has not yet attracted significant international capital. Dealroom co-founder Yoram Wijngaarde noted that a startup founded in London is five times more likely to secure investment than an equivalent business in the North, and that the value of funding reaching northern companies today is at a level London passed eleven years ago.
Wijngaarde said the data "illustrates the strength, depth and immense opportunity for the northern tech sector" while also making clear that businesses in the region "often struggle to secure the vital investment needed to start up, scale and break into international markets."
Market context and the broader picture
The funding disparity described in the Dealroom report reflects a well-documented structural feature of the UK venture landscape, where proximity to London-based fund managers and networks has historically correlated with deal access. Similar dynamics have shaped policy debates in the US around coastal concentration of VC, though US responses have included federal anchor programmes and university endowment participation that are less developed in the UK.
For life sciences and biotech specifically, Northern England houses significant research infrastructure at institutions including the universities of Leeds, Manchester and Newcastle, and the region hosts a number of NHS teaching hospitals that generate translational research pipelines. Several advanced-therapy and medtech companies have emerged from these bases, though they face the same capital-access constraints the Dealroom report describes.
The Northern Tech Summit, organised by TECH SY and hosted at Sheffield's Crucible Theatre, brought together regional mayors, founders, investors and academic leaders. Speakers called collectively for inter-regional collaboration, a unified lobbying voice on investment access, and knowledge-sharing modelled on US cluster ecosystems. Tom Adeyoola of Innovate UK framed the geography starkly: the distance between Liverpool and Sheffield is shorter than the length of the Elizabeth Line, yet the two cities more often compete for funding than align on it.
Whether the summit translates into durable cross-regional structures remains to be seen. Previous attempts to create a pan-Northern technology identity, including the Northern Powerhouse initiative from the mid-2010s, have struggled to sustain momentum after the political cycle moved on. The Dealroom data may provide a more durable evidence base for the case, but closing a twenty-percentage-point VC gap against London will require action well beyond conference-hall consensus.