This comes hot on the heels of other research highlighting Scotland as a digital and creative powerhouse. In recent weeks other reports have positioned Edinburgh as the UK’s best place to start a new business (ExpertMarket), have listed Edinburgh and Glasgow at third and fifth respectively, in the country’s most creative regions(CBRE), positioned two Scottish tech companies in the Top 10 out of the 100 best tech companies in Northern Britain (Tech North), noting Dundee has the highest turnover of any UK tech cluster (Tech Nation) and the Scottish Technology Industry Survey itself, which showed growth, optimism, increasing sales and extreme happiness (ScotlandIS).

This most recent report from solicitor’s Nockolds, on the growth of the United Kingdom’s digital economy found that the gap between London and the rest of the UK is increasing, with the capital well ahead of the rest of the country.

However Scotland’s digital sector is growing more quickly than the rest of the UK. The report claims the number of digital businesses in Scotland grew by 8.8%, from 7,860 to 8,555 companies between 2015 and 2016. Growth in London over the same period increased by 10.6% with the number of digital businesses increasing from 41,940 to 46,405.

Nicola Lucas, an Associate at Nockolds who advises digital businesses, commented: “The digital economy is a UK success story but the gap between London and the rest of the country is widening. Digital businesses benefit from clustering, so this process could accelerate as growing numbers of digital businesses feel that they need to be in the capital where the tech talent and related infrastructure is based.”

“For start-ups the relatively low cost of being based in regional cities can make an important difference in the critical early years. As business grow, the benefits of being close to peers and talent in London often outweighs the cost saving of being in a regional city where attracting staff can be a headache.”

She adds: “London has 13% of the UK’s population yet 27% of all its digital businesses, so the dominance of London is as striking as in many other high value sectors of the economy. The growth rate of the digital sector in London is even more impressive when you consider it’s coming from a much higher base.”

All of which does not change the focal point of this report and indeed reinforces the other research we detailed: Scotland you are officially awesome!

Well done everyone. Enjoy the bank holiday…