New research reveals UK digital economy is 40% larger than official estimates

A new report conducted by London-based startup, Growth Intelligence, has revealed that companies involved in the digital economy are, on average, growing faster than those who are not.

Co-authored by the National Institute for Economic and Social Research (NIESR), the ‘Mapping the UK’s digital economy with Big Data’ report looked at five billion data points to reveal that the digital economy is 40 per cent larger than official statistics, which draw data from less sources, would have us believe.

The report reveals how the Government estimated that there were 120,000 businesses in the digital economy in June 2013, but that the NIESR’s new report  sees their most conservative estimate of the number of digital companies at 269,695.

The report comments: “The UK is one of the world’s strongest internet economies yet the myth persists that it consists largely of tiny dotcom or biotech startups in a few high technology clusters that quickly bubble up and often go bust. 

The reality, as this report shows, is that the digital economy has spread into every sector, from architecture firms whose activities have become almost entirely digital to machine tool manufacturers who now use huge online data-processing facilities, such as Hadoop, to monitor every aspect of their processes.”