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Gasholder park with its reflective mirror walkway in Kings Cross, London, United Kingdom. Mike Kemp | In Pictures | Getty Images
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The dispatch
The term Silicon Roundabout, a label for the cluster of tech firms based around the City Road/Old Street junction north of the City of London, was first coined in 2008. It entered common parlance, though, when in November 2010 the then-new Prime Minister David Cameron placed the area at the heart of his government's growth ambitions. "Silicon Valley is the leading place in the world for high-tech growth and innovation, but there is no reason why it has to be so predominant," he said at the time. "Something is stirring in East London. Only three years ago, there were just 15 technology start-ups around Old Street and Shoreditch…there are now over 100 high-tech companies in the area. "In East London, we have the potential to create one of the most dynamic working environments in the world."
Traffic passes around Old Street roundabout, also known as "Silicon Roundabout," in 2013. Chris Ratcliffe | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Cameron backed the concept with the Tech Nation initiative which, over the next decade, helped hundreds of start-ups, including about a third of Britain's unicorns, to launch. However, for all the hype, it was a false dawn. Amid the chaos following the Brexit vote in 2016, Theresa May, Cameron's successor, allowed Arm Holdings, Britain's tech champion, to be acquired by Softbank of Japan. Covid and the rise of home-working saw the Silicon Roundabout area lose its cachet, while Tech Nation itself ceased to be a government agency in March 2023. Memories of that period were rekindled with London Tech Week, which began on Monday, bringing together more than 30,000 attendees, including 8,250 start-ups and 1,500 investors. A blizzard of data, published before the event, underlined the U.K.'s tech credentials. The Global Tech Ecosystem Index 2026, compiled by data provider Dealroom, ranked London as the world's fourth-largest tech ecosystem — reclaiming the top spot in Europe from Paris — while Cambridge was named third in the global "Density Leader" rankings, which measures innovation output relative to population size, behind only San Francisco's Bay Area and Boston. Dealroom noted London had regained Europe's top spot due to "stronger venture capital investment, continued unicorn creation and its depth across sectors," pointing out London tech companies last year raised $17.7 billion. The city is now home to 138 unicorns, including Wayve, Granola, OLIX and ElevenLabs.
Still, questions remain, not least whether — for all its strengths in AI, fintech and life sciences in particular — Britain relies too heavily on London, Cambridge and Oxford. Not so, according to former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, now an adviser to Microsoft and OpenAI, who at the weekend highlighted success stories outside the "golden triangle," including Newcastle-based Sage, provider of software to small businesses globally and the video game series "Grand Theft Auto," which was created in Dundee. He also noted the U.K.'s emerging strength in quantum computing. In London itself, meanwhile, the hottest new tech cluster is the once-shabby King's Cross area, where OpenAI and Anthropic will shortly open offices. There they will join Google DeepMind (founded in London), Meta, Wayve, ScaleAI and Synthesia. Saul Klein, founder of early-stage investor Phoenix Court, told the Daily Telegraph in April that the area around King's Cross now boasts the greatest concentration of tech companies outside Silicon Valley or Beijing. "When you look at the talent density in science, technology and the creative industries, there's literally nowhere else like this on the planet," he added. Across town, Silicon Roundabout no longer even exists. Following a behind-schedule and over-budget redevelopment by Transport for London, the roundabout was replaced last year with a byzantine road and cycle lane layout which, peppered with traffic lights, causes constant congestion in the area. One hopes this will not prove a metaphor for U.K. tech. — Ian King
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