The independent study, ‘Safer technology, safer users: The UK as a world leader in Safety Tech’, highlights significant growth within the Safety Tech sector, with the number of dedicated online safety firms doubling in the last five years and investment increasing more than eight-fold in 2019, making it a record year.

The main findings of the report are:

1. UK providers of online safety tech currently hold an estimated 25 per cent of the global market share.

2. The number of dedicated online safety tech firms has doubled in the last five years, with 70 firms identified in the report. Almost half have an international presence.

3. In 2019, the sector generated £226 million in annual revenues, and has grown rapidly with an estimated 35 per cent annual growth rate since 2016.

4. Some of the most established companies (those earning in excess of £5 million) have grown at rates of up to 90 per cent a year, and the report estimates that safety tech revenues could exceed £1 billion by 2025.

5. In 2015, the safety tech sector raised £6 million in external investment across ten deals. By 2019, the figure had increased more than eightfold to £51 million across nineteen deals.

6. The report anticipates the UK is likely to see its first safety tech unicorn (a company worth over $1 billion) emerge in the coming years, with three other companies also demonstrating the potential to hit unicorn status in the early 2020s.

The sector consists of companies in fields such as data and computer science providing a range of tech solutions and applications to help increase safety on websites and in apps and video games such as those allowing user-generated content and interactions.