By: Tom Cuthell, Senior Director, London Tech Week
Tech companies thrived during the pandemic, as billions of people shifted their lives further online. And despite the challenges posed by Brexit and coronavirus, we saw a strong performance and rapid growth of London’s tech sector in 2021 suggesting the city is competing strongly on the world stage with other leading global tech hubs.
According to a new report out this month from London & Partners and Dealroom.co, 2021 was also another record year for venture capital investment into London’s tech firms.
From climate and health tech, we spoke to Tom Cuthell, Senior Director at London Tech Week on what he sees as top tech trends to watch in 2022.
Climate Tech will be hot
As the world works to address the climate crisis, there has also been a rapid acceleration of climate tech solutions. Lots of young people are now getting out of legacy tech and moving into climate-tech so expect lots of exciting innovation.
Mass electrification of road transport continues at pace, as Tesla becomes one of the world’s most valuable companies. Everything from electric mopeds to trucks are taking over the streets. Expect incumbents to come out with new models and plenty of new entrants to launch into the market.
We’re also likely to see developments in the future of food and its regulation. For example, molecular farming, vertical farming, insect farming will become more prominent.
And there’s no doubt that we will see more advances in crazy nuclear fusion. Including developments that were not thought possible up until breakthrough advances in 2021.
Further growth in EdTech
The past two years have seen unprecedented growth in education technology (EdTech) as venture capital reached three times pre-pandemic investment levels in 2021, accelerating start-ups around the world with over $20B of funding. This investment in innovation and technology marks a meaningful milestone in a new approach from industry for up-skilling and life-long learning. Impacting teaching, learning and life outcomes, 2021 presented an opportunity for real, transformational change within education.
The last two years have changed everything. For businesses, for leaders and for employees. The unplanned reinvention of the way we work dominated industries as organisations grappled with government guidelines and reacted to constantly changing circumstances. 2022 is now the year for businesses to actively reinvent processes, for leaders to make intentional decisions and for employees to speak their minds.
We will see dramatic changes to the ways we work
Whilst the future remains uncertain, innovation and technology continue to lead instrumental change in the nature of work.
Integration of new technology into the workplace has led organisations to reimagine and re-architect their business strategies to allow for this new virtual world of work, demanding time and energy from technical decision-makers.
A healthy appetite for HealthTech
Over the last five years, the HealthTech industry has become one of the fastest-growing sectors. The growth rate for European-based healthtech companies has seen an exponential rise reaching a combined value of $41bn in 2021. With investment continuing to boom and new VC’s taking a bite from the HealthTech market, in light of the pandemic, it is clear that HealthTech has never been so prominent.
As we march forward into 2022 with an optimistic mindset for the health and wellness of the global population as well as the revelation of new technologies, will we see more healthcare and technology companies joining forces? Will the acceleration of digital health and telemedicine in 2021 be overtaken by another trend? We are yet to find out.
Tech for good
When making technology decisions, purpose matters. We will see Tech for good as a continuing trend throughout 2022 where the demand for businesses to act sustainably will only continue to grow. Organisations in this space are establishing a clear identity and showing extreme growth.
The outcomes of tech for good are impacting the environment, communities, health and education alongside more. The tech for social good movement will continue to grow in strength in 2022, however, there are challenges, too. Diversity, equity and inclusion must be improved to ensure all genders, ethnicities and range of digital abilities are included in the movement; without this the potential growth of tech for good organisations is limited.
