LEP publishes roadmap to £5bn red rose county digital sector

The Lancashire Enterprise Partnership has published a new strategy which will see the county's digital sector become worth more than £5bn per year by 2035, employing more than 50,000.

The Lancashire Digital Strategy is the culmination of extensive consultation and development with a variety of stakeholders by the LEP’s Digital Sector Group and builds upon the LEP’s Strategic Economic Framework.

It lays out a series of 14 short, medium and long-term strategic interventions in an action plan designed to unlock Lancashire’s digital growth potential.

These interventions aim to help Lancashire’s digital businesses to become more competitive, boost employment and capitalise on the digital and data opportunities across the LEP’s priority industry sectors, including aerospace, manufacturing, and energy and low carbon.

They include addressing the current digital skills gap in the county, improvements to digital and physical infrastructure, encouraging knowledge exchange, and securing grant, equity, and debt funding, and attracting more private sector and inward investment.

The strategy can be read here.

The ultimate ambition is for the county to become a globally significant economic powerhouse at the forefront of the next industrial revolution, with the aim of being the fastest-growing digital economy in the UK by 2035. 

Lancashire will become the location of choice for businesses and investors looking to develop and apply innovative digital solutions to significant global challenges in advanced transportation, supply and distribution of clean energy and net zero technologies, cyber security and health.

Digital employment will more than double to over 50,000 and the contribution of the digital sector to over £5bn per annum by 2035, growing from the current 3 per cent contribution to over 10 per cent of economic output.

Kam Kothia, LEP board director and chair of the LEP’s Digital Sector Group, said: "The value of the UK's technology ecosystem has exploded in recent years, In fact, the UK is only the third country in the world to surpass $1tn, after the US and China.

"This presents an exciting once-in-a-generation growth opportunity for Lancashire and we believe that we have a unique set of technological capabilities to be able to capitalise on this opportunity, fulfil our latent potential and become not only a major contributor to the UK’s technology ecosystem but the country’s fastest growing digital economy.

"How we meet this goal is laid out in our inclusive strategy which explores how, through strategic collaborations, we will set Lancashire apart and create an environment where start-ups, scale-ups and even unicorns can thrive."

Kam added: "We recognise that this strategy is ambitious and know that it won’t be realised overnight. It will also require a range of both fiscal and policy-led interventions over the short, medium and long term to achieve impact and positive outcomes for our businesses and residents."