Policy paper

UK's Digital Strategy

The government's vision for harnessing digital transformation and building a more inclusive, competitive and innovative digital economy.

• From: Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport
• Published: 13 June 2022
• Last updated: 4 October 2022 — See all updates

This was published under the 2019 to 2022 Johnson Conservative government

Documents

UK Digital Strategy

HTML

UK Digital Strategy - PDF version (as published on 13 July 2022)

PDF, 16.9 MB, 92 pages

Visa routes for digital employers

PDF, 267 KB, 1 page

Details

The Digital Strategy is a cross-government strategy which sets out a coherent articulation of the government’s ambitious agenda for digital policy.

The strategy focuses on 6 key areas:

1. Digital foundations: an update on the Plan for Digital Regulation and the supply-side offer to the digital economy. This includes a focus on: digital infrastructure, data, regulation and digital markets, and security.

2. Ideas and intellectual property: consolidation of the government’s work to support the innovation ecosystem, including in universities and the private sector. This builds on the Innovation Strategy with a specific focus on digital technology.

3. Digital skills and talent: highlights the UK government’s work to reform and improve our skills and talent provision for the digital economy. This includes: strengthening the digital education pipeline, increasing awareness of the pathways into digital occupations, work to develop an enhanced digital skills base, growing people’s access to digital skills through alternative routes, our work with the private and third sectors, and this government’s reforms to enable UK firms to recruit the best global talent.

4. Financing digital growth: demonstrates the government’s commitment to improving the tech ecosystem to ensure that the UK remains one of the best places in the world to start and run a digital technology business. This includes work to improve access to finance through the British Business Bank and British Patient Capital, embedding the technology revolution across the economy through Fintech, and this government’s push to make the UK the best place to list an ambitious technology business.

5. Spreading prosperity and levelling up: covers how we are using digital technologies to support the achievement of key strategic priorities: enhancing productivity through technology adoption, improving our public services, levelling up, and net zero.

6. Enhancing the UK’s place in the world: focuses on how the UK will use its strategic advantage in digital and tech to influence global decisions for the evolving digital world. It emphasises this government’s commitment to maintaining the UK as a science and technology superpower and how HMG is helping to set global standards on Digital products and services.

This page also includes an infographic setting out visa routes for digital employers (PDF, 267KB), which is explained in section 3 (digital skills and talent) of the strategy documents (PDF and HTML).

Please note that this infographic was updated on 3 October 2022 to reflect the latest information on visa routes. The PDF version of the Digital Strategy was published on 13 June 2022, and includes an earlier version of this infographic. If you are using the PDF version of the Digital Strategy, please also refer to the updated visa routes infographic to ensure you are aware of the latest information.

Published 13 June 2022
Last updated 4 October 2022 + show all updates

1. 4 October 2022

   The visas infographic has been updated to reflect the latest information on visa routes for digital employers.

2. 6 July 2022

   Added PDF version.

3. 4 July 2022

   Attachment added (infographic on visa routes for digital employers) which helps to explain the information on visa routes related to digital skills discussed in section 3.6 (digital skills and talent).

4. 13 June 2022

   First published.