Andy Burnham is near-certain to succeed Keir Starmer as UK prime minister. He will inherit a world in which technological leadership increasingly shapes economic prosperity, military capability and geopolitical influence. Emerging science and technology fields including AI, quantum technologies and engineering biology are no longer simply drivers of productivity; they are instruments of state power.
Yet despite successive governments proclaiming ambitions to make the UK a global science and technology power, Britain still lacks a sufficiently coherent strategy to compete in a fast-evolving technological landscape defined by US–China rivalry.
The UK’s challenge is not a lack of ambition, but a lack of sustained strategic focus. Over the past decade, successive governments have produced numerous science and technology-oriented strategies. But priorities have shifted with changes of leadership and ministerial reshuffles, and funding programmes have too often been replaced or redirected rather than developed into long-term national capabilities. Strategic technologies require investment horizons measured in decades, not parliamentary terms.
Britain’s aim should not be to match the scale of investment or technological breadth of the US or China. It cannot. Nor should it aspire to technological self-sufficiency. Its competitive advantage lies in identifying those technologies where it can develop genuine strategic leverage and concentrating public investment, industrial policy and international partnerships accordingly.
The national security dimension
Doing so requires a more clear-eyed assessment of Britain’s foreign policy challenges, particularly those posed by China. Beijing is not simply another commercial competitor. Under its policy of military-civil fusion, the Chinese state actively seeks to leverage scientific and technological advances developed in civilian universities and industry for military modernization and national security objectives. As Chinese firms become increasingly embedded within global technology ecosystems, standards and supply chains, the UK’s challenge extends beyond protecting sensitive technologies from acquisition. It must also avoid creating strategic dependencies that could constrain its freedom of action during future geopolitical crises.
With limited experience in foreign policy and national security, Burnham’s approach to China remains largely untested. This creates a potential risk that the strategic implications of engagement with Beijing could be underestimated, reducing the UK’s leverage in managing an increasingly complex bilateral relationship.
Burnham would however enter Downing Street with a well-developed vision for industrial renewal. Throughout his time as mayor of Greater Manchester, he has argued for a more active state role in supporting high-growth sectors, including AI, life sciences, advanced materials and manufacturing. He championed plans to ‘reindustrialize the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution’ and emphasized the need for a broader national reindustrialization strategy that spreads high-value jobs and investment beyond the UK’s major urban centres.
The key question will be whether Burnham can translate this vision into government policy amid fiscal constraints and competing political priorities. His government would also need to balance ambitious industrial objectives against the increasingly important national security dimensions of science and technology policy – in particular with relation to China.
Building a coherent strategy
To ensure the UK remains competitive in coming decades, the next government should focus on three key areas.
1. Prioritize the technologies that matter most
The first task should be to replace fragmented technology policymaking with long-term strategic discipline. Britain’s 2023 national quantum strategy provides a useful model. Rather than setting broad aspirations, it identified areas of comparative advantage, established measurable objectives and integrated economic growth with national security considerations. A similar approach should be applied across other strategically important technologies, particularly AI, engineering biology, advanced semiconductors, advanced communications and advanced materials.
The capacity to turn research and innovation into globally dominant firms also deserves attention. Despite producing world-class research and technology start-ups, Britain has repeatedly struggled to scale innovative firms domestically. Too often, companies developed in the UK are forced to seek overseas capital as they grow, limiting Britain’s ability to capture the long-term economic and strategic benefits of its own innovation. More targeted and consolidated pension fund investment into high-growth technology firms, alongside deeper collaboration with trusted international partners, would help ensure that more of the value created by British innovation can be leveraged for the UK’s advantage.
2. Build strategic foresight into government
The pace of technological change and geopolitical competition means science and technology policy cannot remain reactive. It demands a permanent capability to identify and bolster Britain’s strengths in emerging technologies – before they become strategic vulnerabilities or missed economic opportunities.
A future government should therefore establish a cross-government technology forecasting and horizon-scanning capability within the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, working closely with the Government Office for Science and the national security community. Building on the model of the now defunct National Security Technology and Innovation Exchange, its role should be to continuously map and assess emerging technologies, identify areas where the UK can develop competitive advantage, anticipate future technological dependencies, and inform decisions on investment, industrial strategy and national security.
3. Safeguard research security
Britain’s universities are among the country’s greatest strategic assets. They generate world-leading research, attract global talent and underpin innovation across many of the technologies that will shape future economic competitiveness and national security.
But these strengths also make them attractive targets for foreign states seeking to acquire cutting-edge intellectual property, scientific expertise and emerging technologies. This challenge is particularly acute in relation to China. In 2023, the Five Eyes intelligence chiefs issued a rare joint warning about China’s ‘sustained, scaled and sophisticated’ efforts to obtain sensitive research, expertise and intellectual property. Increasingly, knowledge generated through legitimate academic collaboration can be transferred – deliberately or inadvertently – into China’s military, intelligence or strategic programmes.
At the same time, the financial pressures facing UK universities are increasing their exposure to risk. Frozen domestic tuition fees, combined with public research funding that often fail to cover research costs, have left many institutions increasingly reliant on international student fee income. While international collaboration remains essential to scientific excellence, financial pressures can create incentives to pursue overseas partnerships and funding arrangements without fully accounting for their long-term strategic implications.