Of the policy areas where Andy Burnham might claim a mayoral record worth nationalising, the digital and technology economy is among the strongest. It is also one that has drawn surprisingly little scrutiny.
Author
- Richard Whittle
Professor of AI and Public Policy, University of Salford
Over the past decade, Greater Manchester has become the fastest-growing digital economy in Europe, home to a tech ecosystem valued at around US$4.2 billion and the largest artificial intelligence (AI) sector by headcount anywhere in the UK outside London and the south east.
The northern English city of Manchester has played a critical role in the development of Andy Burnham’s political and social outlook. This series considers what some have dubbed Manchesterism and what it might mean for the future of the UK.
Inward investment into the city region’s tech firms rose by more than 1,000% between 2017 and 2022 , according to the Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA). The digital, cyber and AI cluster, anchored in Manchester city centre, now sits alongside advanced manufacturing, life sciences, the creative industries and low-carbon. This makes it one of the five frontier sectors around which GMCA has built its (re)industrialisation strategy .
Not just growth
What makes this “Manchesterism” rather than simply growth is the machinery bolted around it. The cluster is coupled to a £1 billion Good Growth Fund , to the Good Employment and Good Landlord charters . It’s also linked to the Greater Manchester Baccalaureate , a skills route designed to give young people a direct line into the jobs these sectors create.
The planned relocation of nearly 9,000 civil servants into a new Manchester digital campus will deepen this cluster further. The idea, according to Burnham, is that the proceeds of growth should be recycled into communities rather than syphoned out of them.
He also maintains that digital connectivity and the ability to participate digitally is a basic human right driving positive economic change. Burnham sees closing the digital divide as a key driver for a new model of economic growth that is citizen-led and inclusive.
But does any of this survive the journey from Manchester Piccadilly to London Euston? Parts of it travel quite well . Linking growth to place, concentrating on a region’s strengths, planning education and skills around employers , and linking public investment to employment standards are all moves that a national government serious about significant economic devolution could replicate.
The Whitehall-driven Manchester digital campus is national policy already. And it is a key example of playing to a place’s strengths.
Other parts travel badly. Clustering is stubbornly place-specific, and no prime minister can promise every region the largest AI sector outside London, because there is only one of those to allocate.
The digital growth story also omits some harder economics. Research on the places exposed to the AI sector across Greater Manchester shows that the job benefits fall very unevenly between boroughs and occupations. So a cluster that lifts the city centre can have no effect on surrounding towns, rather than enriching places equally.
AI jobs can leave a borough exposed to risks – those jobs, the investment and infrastructure built around them can disappear if the AI bubble bursts . The public sector, increasingly a significant buyer of AI products, carries a pricing and procurement risk that a mayoralty has never had to resolve at a national scale.
