Regional booster programme aims to drive UK tech growth

The government has unveiled 14 Regional Tech Booster projects as part of its £1m programme to provide businesses and entrepreneurs with targeted training and expert guidance.

In partnership with UK Tech Cluster Group (UKTCG), the £1m Regional Tech Booster programme aims to deliver local expertise and includes a series of investment events under a National Investment Corridors initiative, through which the government is seeking to put local tech centre stage, boosting investment into the UK’s tech talent from beyond the capital. The first two of these events are taking place in Bristol and Leeds later this year.

The Regional Tech Booster programme will also include workshops on tech ecosystem planning and sharing best practices for ecosystem development with authorities across the country. Further Regional Tech Booster programme details, including investment event dates and venues, will be available via UK Tech Cluster Group as they are confirmed.

Tech for growth minister Kanishka Narayan MP said: “We want UK tech to grow and succeed from any and every corner of the country. It’s a no-brainer that supporting projects like these, and encouraging more investment across the UK, will catalyse our tech brilliance to boost economic growth and opportunities for communities nationwide.”

The projects receiving Regional Tech Booster funding include Tramshed Tech’s AI Innovation Challenge, which aims to deliver artificial intelligence (AI) capability and innovation across Wales, and ScotlandIS’s Future Ready in Scotland, which aims to break down the barriers that often prevent tech founders in rural or remote communities from accessing opportunities typically available in more urban or connected areas through creating peer networks.

In Northern Ireland, Tech NI Advocates and AwakenHub’s Activate AI pilot programme aims to boost AI adoption and productivity among under-represented founders and small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the region. 

In the East Midlands, Allia Impact’s Building a tech 4 good ecosystem pilot aims to deliver a structured support pipeline, from rapid prototyping and pre-launch programmes to scale-up and funding readiness across the region, while in the West Midlands, TN Naija is providing Build Here, Bridge Beyond, a programme to support immigrant founders in the region to scale locally and globally.

The East of England’s ACT Catalyst pilot from Tech East is targeting startups, scaleups and non-tech SMEs to raise awareness of technologies such as 5G, 6G, AI integration and quantum communications.

The Leeds Digital Startup Studio is offering a peer-to-peer learning model to support at least 30 early-stage and scaling tech businesses across Leeds and West Yorkshire, while in Sheffield, the Pathways off the Plateau scaleup programme from Sheffield Digital Limited is providing targeted support and bespoke action plans to at least 30 plateaued digital businesses in the city and across South Yorkshire.

Other pilots include Digital Plymouth’s Beyond Boundaries Pilot, which is a pre-accelerator programme designed to address systemic gaps in early-stage support in Plymouth’s tech ecosystem, and the Plus X Brighton and Sussex Innovation Centre’s Brighton and Sussex Innovation Partnership for Scale Up Growth, a combined initiative that seeks to strengthen the region’s innovation ecosystem and unlock growth across diverse sectors.

David Dunn, UKTCG lead on Catalyst Pilot Projects, said: “As the projects are delivered, we are excited to share learning across other ecosystems – it is this multiplier effect of knowledge transfer that really makes the Regional Tech Booster initiative valuable.”