Think London | ICT business facts

London’s booming ICT sector is worth $27 billion and is growing by 7% a year

10 key facts about London’s ICT sector.

Strong growth: London is home to the largest concentration of IT software and services companies in Europe, which generates a turnover of $7.8 billion [1]. The London IT services market is growing at more than 7% per year [2] .
Europe’s largest online [3] and end-user markets: Thanks to a high concentration of businesses in financial and business services, creative industries, life sciences and environmental sectors.
Pioneering technologies: London leads the way in the growth areas of mobile, broadband and wireless technologies and is at the forefront of developing Europe’s third generation wireless networks.
Huge public sector opportunities: e-Government is a high-growth sector with contracts worth more than $1 billion. The UK’s public sector is forecast to spend 40% more on IT than France or Germany [4] ; most of these projects will be coordinated by government departments in London.
Leading brand base: 19 of the top 25 European software and IT service suppliers have their HQ in London. All 25 are represented including Accenture, CSC, EDS, Compaq, Capgemini HP, Fujitsu, IBM, KPMG, Ernst & Young, Microsoft, Oracle, Infosys, Atos Origin, Wipro and TCS.
No.1 for games software: At $2.6 billion, the UK is Europe’s biggest games software market and the third largest in world [5].
No.1 for telcos: The UK is Europe’s most liberalised and dynamic telecoms market and has the most advanced infrastructure in Europe. The European telcos market is the world’s largest, worth $873 billion [6], and the UK is Europe’s second largest national market, worth more than 6% of the global market.
Plentiful venture capital: London companies received $830 million of venture capital funding in 2005 — 18% of the European total [7].
Olympics 2012: A large chunk of the $7.5 billion predicted to be generated by the Olympic and Paralympic Games [8] will be spent on IT and telecommunications.
Quality staff: More than 540,000 experienced IT professionals and technology graduates live in London [9]. The city has the highest concentration of IT recruitment consultants in Europe.

Think London can help you tap into this thriving technology market. We have a close working relationship with the London Technology Network — which facilitates industry access to London’s unrivalled university R&D in the areas of software and hardware — plus strong links with telcos operator OFCOM, professional service providers and trade bodies such as Intellect.

[1] DTZ analysis of Office of National Statistics ABI data (2006)
[2] Trends Business Research (2003) ICT in London
[3] ONS (2005) Percentage of households with home access to the internet (HIA2)
[4] Kable, research (2006)
[5] Entertainment & Leisure Software Publishers Association (2006)
[6] European Information Technology Observatory, 2006
[7] Grant Thornton. London: Anchoring European technology investment (2006)
[8] PricewaterhouseCoopers research (2006)
[9] Kew Associates April 2007