Scotland 5G Centre (S5GC): evaluation

Business Engagement

4.1 Introduction

As detailed in Chapter 2, following the initial emphasis on the Wave 1 Projects, the S5GC shifted its focus towards greater engagement with businesses. This chapter explores the nature of those engagements and the reported outcomes and impacts. It is based on information provided by the Scottish Government and the S5GC.

4.2 Engagement Patterns

We do not have records of all of the businesses with which the S5GC worked but were provided with a list of those engaged in 2023/24 and 2024/25. Analysis of this list reveals several notable trends.

Although some organisations were involved in both years, this assessment focuses exclusively on unique organisations to provide a more accurate picture of overall participation and engagement. Based on the data provided, a total of 77 distinct organisations and projects were supported across the two-year period, offering insights into both the breadth and diversity of engagement.

Of those organisations with some form of engagement with the S5GC, key findings include:

• Food and Drink businesses accounted for 21% of all engagements, making it the most common category of business engaged. Notably, 56% of these were distilleries.
• Technology companies were the second-largest group, representing around 13% of engagements. This category spanned a broad mix, including esports, robotics, sensors, and scanning technology businesses (amongst others).
• Manufacturing (including advanced manufacturing) ranked third, comprising 9% of the organisations engaged.
• in fourth place, each with 6% of the total engagement, were Universities and Engineering firms.

Source: S5GC – List of Businesses Engaged (23/24 & 24/25). N=77

It should be noted that the engagements businesses had with the S5GC were varied in nature, from high-level initial conversations and signposting, right through to businesses developing a full 5G project (use case) alongside the S5GC. The S5GC categorised each type of engagement as follows:

• the "Awareness" Stage whereby some discussion had taken place and information on the benefits of 5G was exchanged.
• the "Discussion" Stage, built on the awareness phase and included a discussion on how 5G could benefit the particular organisation.
• the "Support" Stage was where the S5GC provided support (advice/ expertise) to an organisation, where there was no requirement to use the test beds.
• the "Qualifying Opportunity" Stage followed from "discussion" and there was an intention to try some testing using the Hubs.
• the "Use Case Completed" Stage followed on from testing and involved developing an actual 5G project.

Use Case Engagement

When considering specifically those companies with the greatest level of engagement with the S5GC, that is those that either developed or completed a 5G use case, there were 38 unique organisations/projects. Of those, the two largest categories of businesses that got to this stage were ‘Technology’ and ‘Manufacturing’ focused organisations, each making up circa 16% of total Use Case engagement, with ‘University’ projects making up 13%, and ‘Ports’ 8% - see Figure 4.1 below.

Source: S5GC – List of Businesses Engaged (23/24 & 24/25)

N=38

Analysis

The analysis shows clear differences between the types of organisations initially engaged by the S5GC and those that progressed to more in-depth, use-case development. Food and Drink businesses, particularly distilleries, represented the largest share of early engagement at around 21%, yet very few moved into full use-case activity, with only two of the 38 projects coming from this sector.

This suggests that while interest initially was high, or that they were specifically targeted by the S5GC for support, progression was limited, potentially by factors such as the relevance of 5G, internal capacity, changing priorities, or uncertainty around the actual return on investment from developing a 5G project.

In contrast, Technology and Manufacturing organisations become slightly more prominent when looking at use-case development. Although they made up 13% and 9% of overall engagements respectively, each account for around 16% of the use-case projects, indicating a clearer alignment between their operational needs and the benefits of 5G.

Universities also feature more strongly at the more in-depth engagement stage, rising from 6% of initial engagement to 13% of use-case activity. This likely reflects their ability to resource R&D and act as innovation partners within the testbeds.

Finally, Ports - while a small part of the wider engagement - account for 8% of use-case projects, clearly demonstrating strong applicability for 5G in their operations.

Overall, these patterns suggest that while many sectors showed early interest, more in-depth engagement looks to be led by organisations with higher digital maturity or internal resources to support 5G projects, as well as those with clearer operational pathways for adopting 5G technologies into their business/ organisation.

4.3 Reported impacts

4.3.1 Key Performance Indicators

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for the S5GC have changed over time as a result of the shifts in emphases and revised business plans. The Annual Report from 2023-2024 provides a summary of performance against the agreed KPIs for the four pillars of the S5GC’s activity. This is summarised in Table 4.2, below.

Pillar - Coverage

This Pillar was intended to support the trial of new technologies that would help increase connectivity options; the emphasis was on promoting Wave 1 developed technology. KPI refers to number of new technologies developed.

Pillar - 5G Support

This Pillar focused on the deployment of the S5GC’s mobile network assets and in providing support in other areas to businesses. This included providing impartial technical support, procurement advice on network equipment and applying for Spectrum licenses through Ofcom.

Pillar - Engagement

Activity within this Pillar saw the S5GC running key sector showcase events on the benefits of 5G technology, as well as demonstrating use cases to over 700 companies through marketing, events, and direct engagement in Scotland. A key metric within this Pillar was Innovation Centre engagement with companies via the BEMs. The baseline target was to achieve £4.2 million of impact, this was exceeded despite the loss of two BEMs during the year and an inability to fill vacant posts in HIE and NMIS. KPIs refer to the number of organisations engaged and the value of that engagement to those organisations.

Pillar - Innovation

The S5GC delivered two key activities under this Pillar: a) it supported relevant funding applications from the academic sector (£19.78 million achieved versus £2.0 million target); and b) it supported and participated in collaborative Scottish bids for UK funding (£1.24 million in overall project value achieved versus £400,000 target). Successful applications attracted new funding into Scotland.

Source: S5GC Annual Report 2023-2024

As shown, the S5GC has performed well against the KPIs for three of the four Pillars. In relation to the first, Coverage, the S5GC noted that while some technologies were trialled, the need to increase focus on the core use case pipeline had constrained progress against this area of activity.

Performance in relation to 5G Support and Engagement were both strong, with the S5GC exceeding targets for the number of organisations engaged and for the value of support provided. This is examined in more detail below.

In relation to the Innovation Pillar, the value of investment secured far exceeds the target but we would perhaps note some caution here. While S5GC has been involved in these funding bids, the extent of that involvement has certainly varied and it may be harder to attribute the success of all of these funding bids directly to the S5GC’s input.

The S5GC’s Annual Report for 2024-2025 did not present the information in the same way but instead reported that the S5GC had attracted £750,000 in additional funding to Scotland. It also reported impacts of c £2.5 million arising from business engagement activity (reported in more detail below).

4.3.2 S5GC Impact Estimates

From 2023-2024, the S5GC started to collect impact data associated with its business engagement work. This categorised engagements into a number of stages, as follows:

• the Awareness Stage where some discussion took place and information on the benefits of 5G was exchanged were assigned a nominal value by S5GC for the discussion of £500.
• the Discussion Stage built on the Awareness Stage and included a discussion on how 5G could benefit the particular organisation. A nominal value of £1,000 was attributed to these higher value discussions.
• the Qualifying Opportunity Stage followed from the Discussion Stage, where there was an intention to try some testing using the Hubs. Typical values of between £1,000 and £2,000 were attributed, depending on the extent of work involved.
• the Opportunity Scoping Stage followed from the Qualifying Opportunity Stage, where the Use Case design requirements were agreed. S5GC estimated a value of £3,000 for each of these, reflecting the technical input from the S5GC.
• the Testing Stage was where the actual Use Case was developed and tested.
• the Use Case Completed Stage followed on from the Testing Stage. Values were attributed based on what the company estimated as potential savings, productivity benefits or new market share, etc.
• In some cases such as the Tay 5G Innovation Challenge the value of the funding award to the company was used as a baseline measure of value.

The reported impacts for 2023-2024 and 2024-2025 are summarised in Table 4.3 below, broken down into the different categories of estimated impact. It should; be noted that the impact estimates are those provide by S5GC and have not been subject to independent verification.

Source: S5GC data

4.3.3 S5GC Case Studies

The S5GC has compiled 20 case studies of 5G projects covering a range of sectors and 5G applications.

Below we review these to consider the sectors that have been engaged, the ways in which the S5GC has provided support and the reported benefits and impacts of these projects.

Sectors

The sectors covered by the case studies are:

• Ports, Logistics and Supply Chain: four examples again seeking high speed connectivity, often over large sites, and interested in real time data transmission and support for Internet of Things (IoT) projects.
• Energy, Environment and Utilities: four case studies often looking at connectivity to enable monitoring and system control across remote or challenging locations (for example, offshore).
• Agritech and Livestock: three examples generally seeking solutions to enable real time data transmission and automation and high speed, low latency connectivity to improve robot performance.
• Industrial and Manufacturing: three examples focused on connectivity for automation and IoT integration and real time monitoring and control systems.
• Public Safety, Emergency and Security: two case studies focussed on high speed connectivity for data transmission and real time operations in often remote and challenging sites.
• Media, Entertainment and Events: two case studies looking at mobile broadband for high definition content and low latency connectivity for real time integration of live action and computer-generated imagery (CGI).
• Telecommunications and Connectivity: two examples seeking to improve broadband connectivity in rural areas and improve latency, download and upload performance.

In large part, the supported organisations were interested in 5G’s potential to support instant or near-instant data transfer for monitoring, control, automation, or live interaction where delays could impact safety, efficiency, or user experience.

Many also valued 5G’s ability to handle large volumes of data and provide reliable, secure, and resilient connectivity as well supporting large numbers of connected devices, sensors and IoT systems.

A smaller number were also looking at the potential of 5G to extend broadband coverage in rural areas and to support environmental sustainability initiatives such as carbon reduction and resource management.

Support provided

Most of the projects (18 of 20) involved the S5GC providing expert technical advice to inform project feasibility studies and guide 5G deployment. In 12 cases, the projects also involved access to a 5G testbed, networks, and facilities both at 5G Connect Hubs and via deployment of the S5GC’s mobile 5G network. In a smaller number of cases (four) the S5GC supported the procurement and/ or installation of 5G assets and related kit. In two cases, the support also involved help securing licences for spectrum.

In five of the case studies, S5GC also enabled collaboration between stakeholders including universities, businesses, councils, and advisory boards to drive 5G innovation and deployment.

For many, S5GC supported the project leads on an ongoing basis with technical advice, troubleshooting and performance monitoring.

Benefits and impacts

The case studies reported a wide range of benefits and impacts arising from the projects. Impacts reported included:

• productivity and efficiency gains (16 case studies): including improving production and reducing waste, improving quality and labour efficiency, and enhancing the effectiveness and stability of monitoring and control systems.
• costs savings and cost avoidance (11 case studies): as a result of reduced network downtime, avoidance of unnecessary expenditure, avoidance of stock losses and reducing the need for less efficient solutions. In three cases organisations reported actual quantified cost savings totalling £250,000.
• safety and risk reduction (10 case studies): including enhancements to worker, public or operational safety and reducing risks or hazards through enhanced monitoring.
• data driven decision making and automation (9 case studies): use of real-time data, analytics, and automation to optimise operations, reduce manual tasks and improve outcomes.
• new revenue generation and market expansion (7 case studies): including the potential to develop new products and services, attract new customers and increase sales of existing products and services.
• enhanced connectivity and digital infrastructure (6 case studies): provision of robust, high speed or reliable digital connectivity, enabling advanced applications and future proofing operations.
• scalability and future proofing (5 case studies): impacts reported included benefits related to the ability to scale solutions, support future growth or adapt to new technologies and markets.
• sustainability and environmental impacts (4 case studies): including reported reductions in carbon emissions, energy use, waste, and support for clean growth.

4.4 Summary

Drawing overall conclusions based on the information provided by the Scottish Government and the S5GC is made difficult by the following factors:

• reporting of outcomes and impacts was inconsistent over the life of the S5GC, and we have had to rely substantially on the annual reports for 2023-2024 and 2024-2025 (we did not have access to others).
• KPIs where they exist appear to be set on an annual basis, which made assessment of cumulative achievements difficult.
• it was difficult in places to reconcile different sets of figures due to differences in presentation.
• it was not possible to arrive at an overall figure for investment levered into Scotland by the S5GC and reported figures may in places overestimate the S5GC’s role in securing some investments.

Despite these limitations, the available information certainly does indicate that the S5GC has created meaningful impacts both in terms of helping organisations to secure investment for 5G projects, and in enabling 5G innovation in supported companies. These innovations have, in turn, delivered a range of benefits from productivity improvements and efficiency gains to new product and service development, among others.