London Tech Week: Accenture warns of AI divide as Starmer launches tech skills plan
Sir Keir Starmer may sound like he is making the right noises for the tech sector with his flagship pledge at London Tech Week to train one million students in AI – but new data highlights a stark regional divide has already taken shape.
London is rapidly pulling away from the rest of the country is AI job creation, investment and training, raising concerns that the UK’s ambitions to be an “AI maker, not an AI taker” could falter without a more balanced strategy.
Released to coincide with London Tech Week, Accenture’s UK tech talent tracker revealed that 80 per cent of AI job postings are now based in the capital, which also accounts for 65 per cent of all tech vacancies.
While demand for AI talent has grown nearly 200 per cent year on year nationwide, only a handful of regional hotspots – like Glasgow, Liverpool and Leeds – are seeing comparable momentum.
London leads, but regions lag
The report painted a concerning picture for the UK’s AI readiness beyond the m25.
London firms are planning to allocate 19 per cent of their tech budgets to AI in 2025 – well ahead of other regions across the country, where that figure stoops to 13 per cent.
Similarly, 58 per cent of London firms are actively investing in generative AI training, compared to just 40 per cent outside the capital.
Emma Kendrew, Accenture’s UK tech lead, said the UK has a “golden opportunity to lead globally in AI” – yet warned of a growing digital divide.
“To fully capitalise on the economic potential of AI, regions outside of London will also need to compete for talent and infrastructure… The disparity in regional upskilling in AI raises concerns about a growing digital divide in the UK and could hurt long-term competitiveness.”
The government’s own research backs up this sense of urgency, unveiling that by 2035, more than 13 million UK jobs are expected to involve AI either directly or indirectly.
That makes closing this skills gap more than a regional issue, but an economic imperative.
Starmer and Huang bet big on infrastructure
On London Tech Week’s first day, Prime Minister Keir Starmer doubled down on skills as the foundation of the UK’s future growth strategy.
Unveiling a £187m ‘tech first’ programme and the goal of training 7.6 million workers in AI by 2030, he framed AI as a levelling force for economic growth.
“We’re putting the power of AI into the hands of the next generation”, he announced at the event.
By him was Nvidia chief Jensen Huang, who argued that AI must be treated as “critical infrastructure” – and that the UK must lean in with long-term investment in education, compute and security.
The pledge included funding for one million secondary school students to receive Ai and digital training, alongside new master’s scholarships to place top UK talent in AI research at nine leading univerisites.
A new government-backed platform will also centralise AI learning resources for schools and colleges.
Minister for AI Feryal Clark said the government’s ‘AI opportunities action plan‘ aims to ensure “every region shares in the benefits of growth”.
But even as demand for AI professionals fuels a rebound in UK tech hiring, which has seen a 21 per cent uptick over the past year, the foundational infrastructure for equitable growth remains unevenly distributed.