Government cybersecurity action plan includes £16 million in funding

The UK government is putting more cash into the cybersecurity sector as part of a new Cyber Growth Action Plan.

The aim is to boost the UK's £13.2 billion cyber sector with up to £16 million in new funding for startups, scale-ups, and university spinouts.

The project will be led by the University of Bristol and Imperial College London's Centre for Sectoral Economic Performance (CSEP).

It will look at the supply and demand of cyber goods and services, such as protective monitoring and encryption, to establish the opportunities for growth and explore emerging technologies, including AI and quantum.

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"Today's investment will help to turn innovative ideas into successful businesses up and down the country, and the new research will support our mission to grow the economy," said chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster Pat McFadden.

"Recent cyber attacks show just how important it is we foster the development of the sector – delivering the double dividend of high-paying jobs as well as strengthening the country's cybersecurity."

Up to £10 million in additional funding will be invested in the CyberASAP program over the next four years to support the UK's academic cyber sector in turning research into commercial companies.

The program has already supported the creation of 34 spin-out companies, which have raised over £43 million in investment. With the new funding, the aim is to add another 25 spin-outs by 2030 and attract £30 million in additional investment.

"The UK cyber sector is successful and growing, but so too are the challenges, as demonstrated by recent events which have affected businesses and consumers," said Simon Shiu, project leader and professor of cybersecurity at the University of Bristol.

"Based on input from all parts of the cyber sector, this project will make independent recommendations to accelerate growth in cyber, but also to increase cyber-resilience in the other sectors critical to UK security, industry, and prosperity."

Meanwhile, in addition to the government's current cyber accelerator Cyber Runway, up to £6 million will also go to support cyber startups and SMBs, helping them scale, access new markets through trade missions, and boost the UK's wider cyber ecosystem generally.

The government's also pulled in cyber experts from the defence industry, big tech firms, AI labs, and academia to advise it on public sector cybersecurity, with the group set to report later this summer. Execs from BAE Systems, Santander, Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, and Google DeepMind, will take up positions on the Government Cyber Advisory Board.

The work will help support the upcoming cyber resilience bill, which is to be introduced to parliament later this year. It includes proposals to protect the UK's supply chains, critical national services, and IT service providers, with targeted support for hospitals and energy suppliers.