London leads UK AI adoption as the regional gap widens

TL;DR:

  • DSIT figures put London AI adoption at 20%, above the 16% UK average, with Scotland lowest — 84% of firms neither using nor planning AI.
  • In Wales, just 34% of AI adopters feel ready to scale beyond pilots, exposing a readiness gap as much as an adoption gap.
  • Government estimates AI could add £47bn a year to the economy over the next decade.

London businesses are markedly more likely to use AI than firms elsewhere in the UK, according to Department for Science, Innovation and Technology data, with adoption at 20% against a 16% national average. Scotland ranked lowest, where 84% of firms said they were neither using AI nor planning to. The figures point to a readiness problem too: Welsh adopters were the least likely to say they had the data foundations to move beyond pilots.

Adoption is not the whole story

Consultancy Colibri Digital argues the divide reflects uneven access to resources, not flagging interest outside the capital. The deeper issue, it says, is whether firms have modern data systems, cloud infrastructure and operational controls to put AI into daily use. That matters because the gains are real — 56% of UK adopters report productivity improvements. But London is already 28.5% more productive than the UK average per hour worked, so stronger uptake there risks reinforcing an existing lead.

The stakes reach well beyond tech: Network Rail uses AI for predictive maintenance on faults causing some 341 days of delay a year; 99 of 107 English stroke units have AI decision support; and three-quarters of UK financial firms use AI. “London’s lead probably reflects a concentration of resources more than a concentration of ambition,” said Colibri’s Marvin Gillibrand, adding that cloud and open-source tools have lowered the barrier for operationally-focused firms in the north. The data dovetails with separate findings that nearly half of AI projects stall at pilot stage.

Looking forward

The figures pose an awkward question for the government’s £47bn AI ambition and its skills and compute investments: will national strategy narrow regional disparities or deepen them? Interest is broad; the capacity to deploy at scale is not. For firms outside London, the challenge is no longer deciding whether to adopt AI, but building the controls to make adoption count in production.

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