Scotland's Technology Council 2025-26 Report

Executive Summary

Scotland stands at a pivotal moment in shaping its technological and economic future. As global competition intensifies and technological change accelerates, Scotland’s Technology Council — established in May 2025 — has been tasked with advising the Scottish Government on how best to harness emerging technologies to deliver long-term economic and societal benefit. During 2025-26, the Council has examined Scotland’s existing technological strengths, assessed opportunities for global leadership, and identified the systemic barriers that continue to limit national progress.

Scotland benefits from significant assets, including globally recognised universities, a trusted and integrated NHS, leadership in clean energy and fintech, and emerging strengths in AI, quantum technologies, semiconductors, photonics, and space. Collectively, these position Scotland strongly to lead in the next wave of global innovation and support the ambitions we have described as Vision 2035.

However, a number of persistent challenges risk holding Scotland back. These include talent and leadership gaps — particularly a shortage of experienced scale-up leaders and constraints in the speed of hiring — barriers in accessing markets due to restrictive procurement approaches, difficulties securing investment at a globally competitive scale, and fragmentation across the support landscape. These structural issues reduce Scotland’s competitiveness relative to international peers and hinder the ability of high‑potential companies to grow.

Despite this, Scotland has clear opportunities to establish global leadership in four priority domains: becoming Europe’s leading AI‑ready nation; accelerating progress in clean and green energy; strengthening personalised and preventative healthcare driven by secure and integrated data; and, enhancing advanced connectivity, semiconductors, and critical enabling technologies.

To deliver these ambitions, the Council has proposed four strategies —10x Capital, 10x Scale-ups, 10x Spinouts, and 10x Purchasing — designed to attract global investment, accelerate company growth, support commercialisation of research, and stimulate early adoption of Scottish innovation. It might not be possible to deliver all of these actions given competing pressures, but as a Technology Council we feel it is important to set a challenging ambition.

The Council also highlights key risks that require urgent attention, including pressures on the skills pipeline, high energy costs, governance and ethical challenges around data, capacity within universities and the NHS, and barriers to commercialising intellectual property. Addressing these issues will be essential to ensure that Scotland can deliver on its ambitions.

The direction of travel is clear: Scotland must prioritise scale, speed, and system alignment. The next 10 months present a critical window to define success, remove friction, and build the infrastructure and investment pathways required for Scotland to become a global leader in the technologies that will define the coming decades.