The government has set an ambition to double the number of billion-pound UK technology companies as part of a package spanning investment, regulation, infrastructure delivery, and public procurement.
Chancellor John Healey set out the measures in Coventry on Monday, combining plans for new regulatory sandboxes with a Northern business network and changes intended to reduce delays to nationally significant infrastructure projects.
The Treasury said it will work with the Department for Business and Trade to identify high-growth companies and help them address regulatory barriers, raise capital, and win government contracts. Unicorns are privately held companies valued at more than £1bn.
Healey said: “I’m setting an ambition to double the number of unicorn firms in this country.”
The package includes powers for regulators and companies to establish new regulatory sandboxes, allowing products and business models to be tested under controlled conditions before wider deployment. The powers are expected to form part of the forthcoming Regulating for Growth Bill and become available from next year.
Possible applications identified by the Treasury include delivery robots, maritime autonomous vehicles, defence technology, and access to innovative medical treatments. Regulatory sandboxes are already established in parts of financial services, but the planned legislation would provide a broader mechanism for their use across the economy.
The government is also establishing the Northern 500, a network intended to bring together 500 ambitious medium-sized businesses across northern England. It will be led by the Great North partnership of mayors, with private-sector and central-government support.
Its launch sits alongside a separate £150m Northern scale-up fund announced through the British Business Bank, which is intended to provide investments of between £5m and £15m for high-growth companies and university spinouts.
Both initiatives focus on businesses that have moved beyond early-stage finance but still require substantial capital, customers, and commercial support before they can expand internationally.
Later-stage funding has become a recurring feature of UK growth policy. Britain has a substantial venture-capital market and a strong university research base, but governments have increasingly focused on whether successful domestic companies can secure sufficient growth capital without moving headquarters, ownership, or future investment elsewhere.
Public procurement forms another part of the package. The government has already launched a £100m Sovereign AI research and development procurement programme designed to use the state as a first customer for smaller artificial-intelligence companies. Monday’s measures extend the principle across a broader scale-up strategy.
Access to an early large customer can be particularly valuable for businesses selling complex technology into regulated or infrastructure-heavy markets, where commercial adoption can be slower than product development.
The government is also proposing changes to the judicial-review process for Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects. The Treasury said a fixed challenge window would ensure objections were identified and resolved earlier.
Parliament would be given a route to approve projects considered to be of critical national importance, providing greater protection from subsequent legal challenge once consent had been granted. Ministers have also been instructed to reduce consultations where there is no clear requirement for one.
The Treasury estimates that judicial-review challenges typically add around 18 months to nationally important projects. It cited Sizewell C, which faced two judicial reviews that were ultimately dismissed, as one example of the delays associated with the existing system.
A review of UK rail infrastructure costs is also expected to begin in the coming weeks as ministers seek to reduce the time and capital required to deliver major schemes.
The separate measures address several constraints that can restrict business expansion. Growth companies need finance and customers, while larger industrial and infrastructure investments depend on planning, regulation, grid connections, transport capacity, and predictable project timetables.
The government has separately committed to reducing the administrative cost of regulation by 25% by the end of the Parliament, which it estimates would remove £5.6bn of annual burdens. Regulators are expected to meet later this autumn to identify further constraints before the next Spending Review.
Doubling the unicorn population remains an ambition rather than a funded outcome, and the measures will be delivered through different departments, regulators, and legislative timetables.
Progress will therefore be visible in more practical measures: how much additional private capital is mobilised, whether domestic businesses win larger public contracts, how quickly infrastructure decisions are reached, and whether more British technology companies scale without relocating their future growth overseas.
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