London Tech Week 2026 opens with the UK sitting third globally for AI investment, and with London holding the number one fintech position worldwide, at 11 per cent of the global sector. Chris Hayward, policy chairman of the City of London Corporation, used an essay in City AM on Monday to argue those league tables are only half of what the city is bringing to the event.
The other half, on his reading, is a trust layer running from digital identity verification to a national fraud response anchored in the Square Mile. He treats that work as a competitive moat the rankings cannot measure, and as the story he is using Tech Week 2026 to tell.
London’s Tech Case Has the Numbers
The headline figure is the AI ranking. The UK is the world’s third-largest destination for AI investment, behind only the United States and China, and that placement also holds for overall technology investment. Hayward pairs the placement with the corporate count: an estimated 3,300 fintech firms operating in the UK, with London alone representing 11 per cent of the global sector.
The 2025 numbers behind those claims come from Innovate Finance’s annual investment report. UK fintech companies raised $3.6bn in 2025, retaining second place globally and first in Europe, more than the next five European countries combined, according to the 2025 global fintech investment breakdown. Global fintech funding rebounded to $53bn across 5,918 deals, up 21 per cent on 2024. The US led with $25.1bn, the UK took second, and India third with $3.4bn.
Top five UK fintech deals of 2025, per Innovate Finance:
- FNZ: $650m, wealth management
- Rapyd: $300m, payments
- Dojo: $190m, payments and merchant acquiring
- Quantexa: $175m, data analytics
- Fnality: $136m, payments
The Case Hayward Is Actually Making
Hayward’s essay turns from the league tables to a less-headline argument. Leadership in technology, on his reading, is built on trust as much as on capital.
That trust, in his framing, has three fronts. Disinformation is the first: false narratives spreading at speed online, undermining confidence in institutions, damaging the UK’s reputation overseas, and eroding social cohesion at home. The second is the integrity of the public square as more of the economy moves online. The third is the digital identity layer that makes any of that activity legible.
Hayward treats these as one connected problem, and the rest of the essay is a tour of the assets London already has for solving it. The investment ranks answer how much capital is flowing. The trust infrastructure answers whether the activity underneath is legible, defensible, and protected.
Two Tech Districts, One City
The investment figures sit on a real estate story Hayward is keen to tell. The Square Mile, the City of London’s historic financial core, now hosts around 100,000 people working in the technology sector. King’s Cross, a mile or so north, has become one of Europe’s leading technology districts, with major technology companies, academic institutions, and entrepreneurial talent clustered around the rebuilt Coal Drops Yard. The two districts are different in tone, and the article frames the breadth of London’s tech footprint as a competitive asset in its own right.
The City Corporation’s own economic footprint gives the Square Mile weight beyond tech, with financial and professional services generating over £85bn in UK economic output annually and contributing 12 per cent of total UK tax revenue, per Chris Hayward’s biography on the Tech Week site. King’s Cross, by contrast, has drawn the AI and frontier-tech cluster: academic institutions and major technology companies working from the redeveloped Coal Drops Yard. The article pairs the two districts as a single pitch, a Square Mile that is also a tech employer and a King’s Cross that has become a deep-tech and AI cluster.
| District | Tech role | Source figure |
|---|---|---|
| Square Mile (the City) | Historic financial core, now also a major tech employer | around 100,000 people in tech roles |
| King’s Cross | One of Europe’s leading technology districts | rebuilt Coal Drops Yard at the centre, with academic institutions and major technology companies clustered nearby |
Building the Trust Layer
Hayward’s most concrete policy plank is digital identity. Work on the Digital Verification Orchestrator, he writes, has the potential to transform how individuals and businesses prove their identity online.
The wider UK identity stack is already taking shape around it, with the Digital Verification Services Trust Framework setting the rules for certifying identity service providers and a UK CertifID mark beginning to appear on certified services. Innovate Finance’s January 2026 report credits digital ID legislation, alongside the Mansion House Accord and the National Payments Vision, as one of the reforms that gave the UK a foundation for its 2025 funding rebound. Identity, payments, and capital markets are now being regulated as a single stack.
Hayward frames the political case in his essay: defending the integrity of the public discourse is no longer separate from promoting economic growth. As more of the economy moves online, he argues, trusted digital infrastructure becomes every bit as important as the physical infrastructure on which previous generations depended. The rest of the essay applies that framing to three concrete areas. Fraud response comes first, wholesale market infrastructure second, and the City’s broader tech pitch third.
The September 2025 announcement of the Salisbury Square topping out puts the scale of that build on the record. The City Corporation is funding a complex that combines a new City of London Police headquarters with 18 courtrooms dedicated to economic and cybercrime cases, per the topping-out of the Salisbury Square complex. Hayward’s remarks at the topping-out event put the case in plain language.
Fraud is the most common crime in the UK, and it is growing in scale and complexity. The Salisbury Square Development represents a once-in-a-generation investment in our justice system, ensuring we have the modern facilities, cutting-edge technology, and specialist expertise needed to respond.
Chris Hayward, policy chairman of the City of London Corporation, in remarks released at the topping out of the Salisbury Square development, September 2025.
Where the National Fraud Response Is Built
The Salisbury Square build is the visible expression of the trust layer, with the City of London Corporation funding a £600 million complex that combines a new City of London Police headquarters with 18 specialist courtrooms dedicated to economic and cybercrime cases. Fraud, per Hayward, accounts for a significant proportion of all crime experienced in the UK, devastating lives and costing billions of pounds each year.
The City of London Police is the National Lead Force for Fraud and Cyber Crime, a unique status that gives it a UK-wide mandate. The new Salisbury Square headquarters will host the force’s national fraud and cyber command, alongside 18 specialist courtrooms dedicated to economic and cybercrime cases. The City Corporation is funding the build and the courts estate from its own resources. On the City Corporation’s reading, the Salisbury Square project will strengthen the UK justice system by giving fraud and cybercrime cases a single dedicated venue.
The capabilities on show at Salisbury Square are the operational ones: advanced analytics on fraud data, intelligence sharing across the lead-force network, and disruption operations against criminal networks. The City of London Police’s specialist fraud teams and the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau feed into a single national picture, which the new headquarters is designed to consolidate. The build is timed to a period in which fraud has grown faster than the policing response, on the Corporation’s own assessment.
Three COLP data points frame the existing capability under the National Lead Force status, per the September 2025 announcement:
- £55.5m in financial industry fraud losses prevented by COLP’s public-private partnership model in the last year
- £800m in fraud prevented since the creation of COLP’s Dedicated Card and Payment Crime Unit
- 3,500+ officers and partners trained in the last three years through COLP’s Economic and Cyber Crime Academy
The Wholesale Digital Markets Push
The third plank of Hayward’s trust argument is wholesale market infrastructure. The City of London Corporation is supporting the Digital Markets Champion in securing the UK’s position as an open, competitive, and trusted international centre for digital asset innovation and liquidity, per the policy chairman’s full essay on London’s tech case.
The Champion role was created to coordinate the policy work across wholesale market infrastructure, settlement, and tokenisation. The scope covers tokenised deposits, the digital gilt pilots, and the wider push to make London a centre for digital asset liquidity. On Hayward’s reading, the city needs to be the place where wholesale digital asset infrastructure is built and governed. The City Corporation frames the Champion work as part of its wider competitive pitch to Tech Week visitors.
What Tech Week 2026 Is For
Hayward closes on a frame that is half pitch, half warning. London Tech Week should be more than a celebration of the latest innovations, on his reading. It should be a statement of intent.
The numbers to back that intent are now in plain view. Innovate Finance’s January 2026 report has the UK at $3.6bn of fintech investment in 2025 across 534 deals, second globally and first in Europe. The Square Mile hosts around 100,000 tech workers, and King’s Cross has become one of Europe’s leading technology districts, per the City of London Corporation’s own essay. The Digital Verification Orchestrator, the Salisbury Square build, and the Digital Markets Champion are the three trust-layer assets the Corporation is putting on the table. Country delegations have made London Tech Week a regular on the global tech calendar, with the 2024 London Tech Week presence of Pakistan’s software export board one marker of the international pull the event now has.
The harder half to defend is the trust layer underneath the league tables. He closes with a flat claim, one that pitches London as helping to build the technological future, on his reading.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the UK’s current rank in AI investment?
Third globally, behind only the United States and China, per the City of London Corporation’s policy chairman writing in City AM on 15 June 2026.
How much did UK fintech raise in 2025?
$3.6bn across 534 deals, retaining second place globally and first in Europe, per Innovate Finance’s January 2026 investment report.
What is the Digital Verification Orchestrator?
A UK government framework for letting individuals and businesses prove their identity online, with the goal of reducing fraud and giving consumers confidence in how their data is handled. It sits alongside the Digital Verification Services Trust Framework and the UK CertifID mark for certified services.
Who supports the UK’s wholesale digital markets push?
The City of London Corporation backs the government’s Digital Markets Champion, a role coordinating UK policy on wholesale digital market infrastructure, tokenisation, and digital asset innovation, per the policy chairman’s June 2026 essay.
Why is the City of London Police central to UK fraud response?
It is the National Lead Force for Fraud and Cyber Crime, and is being given a new £600m headquarters at Salisbury Square, topped out in September 2025, with 18 courtrooms dedicated to economic and cybercrime cases, funded by the City of London Corporation.
