Britain's Pattern of Reinvention
The UK has reinvented itself before. Coal powered the Industrial Revolution. Factories made us the workshop of the world. When manufacturing moved elsewhere, we pivoted to financial services and became a global hub for capital.
Each transformation created new prosperity—but also left people behind. And each time, the "what" was clear: a single dominant industry that would define the next era.
This time is different.A "UK reinvention" in 2025 probably isn't one single thing. It's more like 4-6 big bets that stack together. And the one that matters most—the one that unlocks all the others—is AI-powered productivity.
The Six Bets
Let me lay out what a credible UK reinvention actually looks like:
1. Energy Abundance
Everything modern—AI, industry, living standards—bottlenecks on cheap, reliable power. The UK needs to build more clean generation (offshore wind, solar, storage, grid upgrades), sort out planning and grid queue delays, and add firm power (nuclear, SMRs) so industry trusts the baseload.
Energy abundance is the new steam engine. It lowers costs across the entire economy.
2. AI + Automation Everywhere
Not "we have AI startups," but: every boring process in every sector gets automated.
This is where the UK is genuinely well-placed. We have world-class professional services (law, accounting, compliance, insurance), a massive health and care sector, sprawling government administration, complex logistics and supply chains, and sophisticated financial services.
If we do this right, we get what we've been missing for 15 years: productivity growth.
3. Life Sciences as an Export Engine
The UK has serious strengths: universities, research base, and the NHS as a potential testbed (if procurement and data governance stop being self-sabotaging). The play is faster trials and approvals, better tech procurement so companies can scale at home, and building "from lab to factory"—not just papers.
4. Advanced Manufacturing in the "Small, High-Value" Lane
We're not beating China at mass manufacturing. But we can win at aerospace, precision engineering, robotics components, medical devices, defence and dual-use tech, and high-end materials. Think "Germany/Japan-ish capability," but more software-native.
5. Housing + Planning Revolution
This sounds unsexy, but it's arguably the biggest quality-of-life lever. If the UK builds more homes where jobs are, you get lower living costs, higher real wages (because rent stops eating everything), more labour mobility, less intergenerational resentment, and more family formation and stability.
This is one of the few changes that genuinely makes life better for everybody, not just winners.
6. Creative + Cultural Export, Modernised
The UK already punches above its weight in music, TV/film, design, advertising, and games. The reinvention is making it tech-enabled: virtual production, game engines as industrial tools, IP + platforms + tooling (not just talent exporting). This is a real export sector if treated like infrastructure, not vibes.
The Uncomfortable Truth
The UK can reinvent itself. The "what" is there. The "how" is where we keep faceplanting.
The binding constraints are usually:
- Planning (everything takes forever to approve)
- Grid + infrastructure delivery (we can't build fast enough)
- Procurement (government buying is broken)
- Skills + training pipelines (we don't have enough people who can do the work)
- Regional transport (talent can't move to where it's needed)
- Political stability / consistency (policy changes every few years)
These aren't technical problems. They're institutional problems. And they're why the UK has had essentially flat productivity for 15 years while other countries pulled ahead.
Where We're Placing Our Bet
At Make More Digital, we've thought hard about where a small, senior team can actually make a difference. Our answer: AI automation + compliance + regulated services productivity.
That's basically "make the UK's expensive, slow processes fast and trustworthy"—and sell it domestically first, then export it.
Here's why this bet makes sense:
The UK's Expensive Processes Are Our Opportunity
Professional services, financial compliance, healthcare administration, government processes—these are all areas where:
- The UK has genuine expertise and scale
- Processes are slow, expensive, and paper-heavy
- Regulation creates barriers to entry (which is actually good for serious players)
- AI can deliver 10x improvements, not 10% improvements
- Trust and governance matter (which plays to our strengths)
What We Actually Build
We're not building AI chatbots or generic automation tools. We build intelligent business applications for organisations where compliance and auditability matter.
That means:
- AI agents that handle document processing, triage, and classification
- Workflow automation that maintains complete audit trails
- Systems that work within regulatory boundaries, not around them
- Solutions that make human experts more productive, not redundant
Why Governance Is Our Moat
Most AI companies treat governance as an afterthought. We treat it as the product.
When you're automating processes in financial services, healthcare, or government, you can't just "move fast and break things." You need:
- Complete traceability of every AI decision
- Human accountability at every step
- Audit trails that satisfy regulators
- Security that meets enterprise requirements
This is hard. It's also why most AI startups can't sell to the organisations that would benefit most from automation.
The Founder Play
If you're a builder thinking about where to focus, here's the opportunity as we see it:
Target: UK professional services, financial services, healthcare operations, government administration Value proposition: "We make your expensive, slow, compliance-heavy processes 10x faster while maintaining full auditability" Why now:- AI capabilities have crossed the threshold where this is actually possible
- Regulatory pressure is increasing (more compliance = more opportunity for automation)
- Labour costs are rising (automation ROI is improving)
- The UK has the expertise to build this properly
- Senior-heavy teams who understand both AI and governance
- Methodology designed for regulated environments
- Track record of delivering in demanding contexts
- UK-based, UK-focused, UK-accountable
What Needs to Change Nationally
For this bet to pay off at scale, the UK needs to:
1. Fix procurement: Government and NHS buying processes are so broken that innovative companies can't sell to them. This isn't about "more money"—it's about buying smarter.
2. Create regulatory sandboxes: Let companies test AI automation in controlled environments before full deployment. The FCA has done this for fintech; we need it for AI in other sectors.
3. Invest in skills: Not just "AI skills" but the combination of domain expertise + technical capability that makes AI actually useful. A lawyer who understands AI is more valuable than an AI engineer who doesn't understand law.
4. Maintain policy consistency: Companies won't invest in UK-focused solutions if the rules might change next year. Boring, predictable policy is actually what we need.
The Bottom Line
The UK's next reinvention won't be a single industry. It'll be making everything we already do dramatically more productive through AI automation.
The opportunity is real. The technology is ready. The question is whether we can get out of our own way long enough to capture it.
At Make More Digital, we're not waiting for national policy to sort itself out. We're building the tools and methodologies that let organisations automate their expensive, slow processes today—with the governance and accountability that regulated industries require.
If that sounds like what you need, let's talk.
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*Chris Barry is the founder of Make More Digital, an AI-accelerated digital delivery agency building intelligent applications for organisations where compliance and auditability matter.*