Nearly 38,000 UK jobs are set to be created across the UK after a total of £63 billion of investment was announced around Monday’s International Investment Summit.
The record-breaking total figure more than doubles the £29.5bn committed at last year’s Global Investment Summit and spans partnerships across the infrastructure and tech sectors.
The government says the investments follow its actions to reform planning, focus on AI and data centre expansion, and set a clear commitment to net zero by almost doubling the funding for renewable energy projects.
Alongside the tech deals announced by international firms, Imperial College London revealed a £150 million investment to secure a new R&D campus to add to its rapidly expanding DeepTech ecosystem in West London.
Blackstone confirmed a £10bn investment in Blyth, Northumberland to create one of the largest artificial data centres in Europe, creating 4,000 jobs, including 1,200 roles dedicated to the construction of the site.
CCUS investors including Eni, BP and Equinor reached a commercial agreement with the government that will unlock £8bn of private investment to launch carbon capture clusters in the heartlands of the North West and North East of England, directly creating 4,000 jobs and supporting 50,000 jobs in the long-term.
CyrusOne, a leading global data centre developer headquartered in the United States, announced plans to expand its investment into the UK to £2.5bn over the coming years. Subject to planning permission, the two data centres should be operational by Q4 2028, projected to create over 1,000 jobs both directly and within its immediate design and construction value chain.
Octopus Energy committed to a £2bn investment in renewable energy generation, including four new solar farms in Bristol, Essex, East Riding of Yorkshire and Wiltshire that will power up to 80,000 homes as well as breaking ground on a new 12 MW battery in Cheshire which Octopus say will store enough power for nearly 10,000 homes every day.
SeAH Wind has made an additional £225m investment into wind technology manufacturing in Teesside, thanks to new backing from UK Export Finance, and expects to create 750 direct jobs by 2027. This brings its total investment into the site at Teesworks up to £900m and will help it to make its ongoing factory build – one of the biggest facilities of its kind worldwide – even bigger.
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CloudHQ is developing its new state-of-the-art £1.9bn data centre campus in Didcot. The hyper-scale data centre is currently in development and will help meet the UK’s growing demand for AI and machine learning. It will create 1,500 jobs during construction, and 100 permanent jobs once fully operational.
Macquarie is supporting investment of £1.3bn into new green infrastructure including its Island Green Power solar farm in Stow, as a result of planning consents having been granted by the government, and its Roadchef portfolio company installing electric car ultra-fast charging points across its sites along the UK motorway network.
ServiceNow also confirmed its commitment to the UK market, with plans to invest £1.15bn into its UK business over the next five years. The investment will not only support the future development of AI in the UK, expanding its data centres with Nvidia GPUs for local processing data, but also support new office space as the company significantly grows into employee base beyond its current headcount of 1,000 employees.
CoreWeave is building on its £1bn investment announced in May and the opening of its European headquarters in London by investing a further £750m-plus in the UK to support the demand for critical AI infrastructure.
Holtec, a major US advanced nuclear engineering company, has confirmed a significant investment of £325m in a new factory in South Yorkshire which will supply materials for civil and defence nuclear industries. They say this will create up to 490 direct and 280 indirect jobs annually during the construction phase and 1,200 direct engineering jobs created over 20 years.
BW Group is proceeding with a £500m investment which includes new battery energy storage projects in Hampshire and Birmingham.
Eli Lilly and Company is collaborating with the government through a memorandum of understanding which will see the pharmaceutical giant intending to commit £279m to tackle significant health challenges including obesity. Lilly also plans to launch the first ‘Lilly Gateway Labs’ innovation accelerator in Europe to support early-stage life sciences businesses to develop transformative medicines and technologies.
Haleon has received planning permission to develop a new £130m Global Oral Health Innovation Centre in Weybridge, Surrey. This state-of-the-art facility will primarily support Haleon’s global oral health business by developing new products that advance consumers’ better everyday health.
“Global investors should be in no doubt that under this new government Britain is truly the best place to do business,” said Business and Trade Secretary Jonathan Reynolds. “The record-breaking investment total secured at today’s Summit marks a major vote of confidence in the UK and our stability dividend across industry and innovation.
“We’re determined to deliver economic growth in every part of the UK and these investments, together with our forthcoming Industrial Strategy, will give global businesses the certainty they need as we lead the charge for the innovation and jobs of the future.”
Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves (pictured) added: “After the investments secured as part of this summit, my optimism for Britain burns brighter than ever.
“It’s a sign of the confidence in the British economy. And it matters because it will support the growth of businesses big and small across the UK, helping them create new jobs and making people better off.”
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