The Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade (referred to in the publication as DSIT) has released its AI sector study for 2025, the government’s annual stocktake of the UK’s artificial intelligence industry.
What the study covers
According to the publication, the research sets out a timeseries covering employment, revenue, gross value added (GVA) and equity investment in the UK AI sector, running from 2022 to 2025. The document states that the study also draws on qualitative input gathered directly from people working in the sector, alongside the quantitative data.
The stated aim is to help government “deepen its understanding of the AI sector, monitor developments over time, and evaluate interventions to best support sector growth.” In other words, the study is meant to give officials a consistent set of metrics they can use year on year to judge whether AI policy and funding programmes are having an effect.
Why it matters for UK firms
For UK AI companies, founders and investors, this kind of annual benchmarking exercise is one of the few official reference points for how the sector is sized and tracked by government. Firms citing the sector’s scale in pitches, policy submissions or grant applications are likely to draw on this data, and the taxonomy used by DSIT to define what counts as an “AI company” can shape which businesses are included in official growth figures and which are not.
The publication does not itself set out the specific employment, revenue, GVA or investment totals for 2025, nor does it name individual companies surveyed. Readers wanting the underlying numbers will need to consult the full study document on the GOV.UK page, which DSIT has published alongside the summary.
What to watch next
The key follow-up for UK tech firms and investors is the detailed dataset itself, including how this year’s employment and investment figures compare with the 2022 to 2024 period covered in the same timeseries. Any divergence from previous years, for example a slowdown in equity investment growth or a shift in which regions or sub-sectors are driving employment, would be a signal to watch given the study’s stated role in shaping future government support for the industry. Daily Tech Times will report on the detailed figures once they are available in full from the published document.