Innovate UK shifts £1.1bn toward scale‑ups
Innovate UK announced it will reorient its £1.1bn budget to prioritise high‑growth startups and scale‑ups instead of broad open‑apply schemes, concentrating funding on firms in AI, embedded finance, and data infrastructure. That policy tilt means the most ambitious fintechs will be the primary beneficiaries—and likely hiring pools for technical interns and junior engineers. (bmmagazine.co.uk)
Innovate UK will reorganise around six government “industrial strategy” priority sectors — advanced manufacturing, clean energy, creative industries, defence, life sciences and digital technologies — and set up dedicated growth‑sector teams plus an account‑management service called Velocity to stay with firms from early grants through to serious capital, with the reshaped model due to start in April. (researchprofessionalnews.com) The agency plans to scale back broadly stage‑agnostic programmes such as Smart Grants and expand targeted streams including a £100 million Growth Catalyst scheme that offers up to 70% funding for early‑stage project costs and up to 45% for larger R&D programmes. (bmmagazine.co.uk) Innovate UK says it will act as a “due diligence engine” to de‑risk deep‑tech bets for private investors as part of a wider UKRI commercialisation effort that has nearly £7.4 billion earmarked for commercialisation to 2029–30. (researchprofessionalnews.com) The agency already runs targeted initiatives in financial and professional services — including a Next Generation Professional and Financial Services programme backed by £26.5 million — and has funded data‑access competitions such as an Innovation Lab that invested up to £8 million for responsible data methods, aligning funding tools with embedded‑finance and data‑infrastructure use cases. (iuk-business-connect.org.uk) High‑growth UK scaleup programmes underline where hiring will concentrate: Tech Nation’s Future Fifty cohort has raised more than £1.4 billion and employs over 2,100 people, and sector tracking shows AI and fintech scaleups driving rapid job creation across the UK. (businesscloud.co.uk) Market and hiring data show concrete demand at junior levels now: online listings surface hundreds of data‑science internships (Prosple lists around 163 current internship opportunities) and thousands of junior data‑scientist vacancies across UK job aggregators (Jooble shows c.8,600 listings), signalling available entry‑level roles inside the firms Innovate UK intends to prioritise. (uk.prosple.com) Tom Adeyoola, Innovate UK’s executive chair, initiated the rebuild after taking his post last year and framed the shift as a move to back businesses capable of becoming “industry leaders and giants,” naming Arm as an example of the scale the agency wants to create. (researchprofessionalnews.com)
