The UK Department of Business and Trade has been asking for input on its priorities for 2026 in the face of government demands for economic growth. As part of this process, MOW has submitted its manifesto for growth, focusing on how changes to the UK’s digital regulations could help drive better economic performance.
The priorities should be:
- The hidden “Tech Tax” of £1,200 per household. Tech platforms are extracting hidden rents and raising prices for advertising that is paid for by all households in the UK.
- Monopoly restrictions on smaller UK businesses; this is holding up innovation and holding back growth and employment.
- Tech platforms are hollowing out digital jobs in the UK: after 10 years of steady growth, 120,000 jobs have been lost in the last 2 years to 1.77m (5.2% of all jobs) from 1.89m. [1]
The tech platforms are dominating the Internet at the cost of UK businesses and households. Until this fact is grasped and a suitable response is put in place, the country will not see the full extent of the long promised digital dividend.
Read our full submission here.
[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/economic-estimates-employment-in-the-digital-sector-january-2024-to-december-2024/economic-estimates-employment-in-the-digital-sector-january-2024-to-december-2024 see also Creative Industries – House of Commons Library which suggests a higher GVA. The creative industries contributed around £124 billion to the economy in 2023 (in terms of gross value added). This was around 5% of total UK economic output. The IT, software and computing services is the largest sub-sector, contributing 40% of creative industries output. There were around 2.4 million jobs in the creative industries in the year from July 2023 to June 2024, around 7% of all UK jobs. Goods and services exports for the creative industries were worth £54.7 billion in 2021, equal to 7.7% of UK exports in 2021. The importance and growth of online media content in the UK is highlighted in Ofcom’s 2025 Media Nations report accessible at: https://www.ofcom.org.uk/siteassets/resources/documents/research-and-data/multi-sector/media-nations/2025/media-nations-2025-uk-report.pdf?v=401287