Yorkshire tech companies are primed to be the big players of tomorrow - Nicholas Lyons

However, this tech innovation is by no means limited to London alone within the UK’s shores. The former Minister for Tech and Digital Economy rightly described Leeds’ tech sector as a “force to behold.”

More than 49,000 people work in tech start-ups and scale-ups across Leeds with the number of fintech start-ups increasing by 263 per cent since 2020.

The advances made in Leeds made it a logical place to play host to the launch of the Centre for Finance, Innovation and Technology in February this year.

The so-called Northern Triangle tech start-ups – those based in Leeds, Sheffield and Manchester – have raised £1.3bn in funding over the last five years.

Leeds’ innovative tech companies include Answer Pay, which is using open finance to aggregate invoices into one place while green fintech start-up, Tred, has created a debit card that provides consumers with information about their carbon footprint as they spend.

Leeds is undoubtedly a trailblazing UK tech and fintech ecosystem - and other examples of this sort of innovation are to be found across Yorkshire.

In my responsibility as the Lord Mayor of London, I’m not only an ambassador for London as a global financial centre, but also UK financial and professional services (FPS) as a whole. The City of London Corporation has a significant and rich relationship with Leeds, predicated on our shared FPS ambitions and driven through our UK Regions and Nations Strategy.

We have collaborated with colleagues in Leeds on our mutual ambitions in fintech and lawtech; shared experiences in seeking to deliver a just transition to net zero; and collaborated on talent and skills.

Therefore, the question of how to supercharge Leeds’ tech ecosystem is of utmost importance to the UK FPS picture as a whole.

Leeds is a perfect example of the UK’s unmatched ability to get start-ups off the ground whilst lacking the deep pools of later-stage venture capital businesses need to accelerate. As a result, they are forced to head overseas to capital providers, an issue we’ve lamented here in the City as high-profile tech businesses which started in the UK shun a listing on the London Stock Exchange in favour of New York.

This is a dilemma that I believe partly finds its solution in the newly signed Mansion House Compact which saw nine chief executives from some of the UK’s largest defined contribution (DC) pension schemes commit to allocating at least 5 per cent of assets to unlisted equities by 2030 – unlocking £50bn by the end of the decade. The signatories – Aviva, Scottish Widows, L&G, Aegon, Phoenix, Nest, Smart Pensions, M&G and Mercer – represent around two-thirds of the DC market.

They’ll invest into tech, life-sciences and bio-tech companies via existing investment vehicles or new ones to boost returns for pension savers and support the development of high growth firms.

Investment vehicles could also include a Future Growth Fund, an idea I’ve championed during my tenure as Lord Mayor.

With initiatives like Nexus Leeds which I’ll be touring during my visit to the city this week, and business communities like FinTech North, who I’ll also be meeting, the impact of the Mansion House Compact and a possible Future Growth Fund could completely revolutionise Leeds’ already booming tech ecosystem.

Leeds is a hub of expertise with 66 per cent of jobs in the city being highly skilled and the city itself exports £3.8bn in financial services. Leeds is also among seven UK cities outside of London with two or more unicorns.

Meanwhile, research released just this month revealed 71 per cent of Yorkshire-based tech companies are seeking funding to expand their operations.

It’s paramount that these Yorkshire companies, which are primed to be the big players of tomorrow, can access investment in the UK so the rewards of their growth can be reaped here for the benefit of pension savers and the business ecosystem in the northern England region and beyond.

Nicholas Lyons is the Lord Mayor of London.