UK House of Lords Primer: “It is difficult to accurately pinpoint the economic contribution of science and technology to the UK economy. This is because of the way sectors are divided up and reported in financial statistics.
For example, in September 2024 the Office for National Statistics (ONS) reported the following gross value added (GVA) figures by industry/sector for 2023:
- £71bn for IT and other information service activities
- £20.6bn for scientific research and development
This would amount to £91.6bn, forming approximately 3.9% of the total UK GVA of £2,368.7bn for 2023. However, a number of other sectors could also be included in these figures, for example:
- the manufacture of computer, certain machinery and electrical components (valued at £38bn in 2023)
- telecommunications (valued at £34.5bn)
If these two sectors were included too, GVA across all four sectors would total £164.1bn, approximately 6.9% of the UK’s 2023 GVA. However, this would likely still exclude relevant contributions that happen to fall within the definitions of different industries. For example, the manufacture of spacecraft and related machinery falls within the same sector as the manufacture of aircraft in the ONS’s data (this sector was valued at £10.8bn for 2023).
Alternatively, others have made estimates of the economic contribution of more specific sectors connected to science and technology. For example:
- Oxford Economics, an economic advisory firm, has estimated that, in 2023, the life sciences sector contributed over £13bn to the UK economy and employed one in every 121 employed people
- the government has estimated the value of the digital sector (comprising information technology and digital content and media) at £158.3bn for 2022
- a 2023 government report estimated the value of the UK’s artificial intelligence (AI) sector at around £3.7bn (in terms of GVA) and that the sector employed around 50,040 people
- the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit, a non-profit organisation, reported estimates that the GVA of the UK’s net zero economy (encompassing sectors such as renewables, carbon capture, green and certain manufacturing) was £74bn in 2022/23 and that it supported approximately 765,700 full-time equivalent (FTE) jobs…(More)”.