UK

Summary
The United Kingdom's level of digital dependence remained moderate and stable. Its DDI value decreased during the 2010s before stabilising at around 0.66 in the early 2020s. This development was strongly influenced by the newly gained autonomy in the ICT services sector, where dependence declined from 0.36 in 2010 to 0.27 in 2023. However, dependence on ICT goods for trade increased from 0.68 to 0.74. With an average value of 0.99, the UK's reliance on foreign platforms and patents remained extremely high. The UK's increasing dependence on Chinese ICT goods resulted in a bilateral dependence of 0.96 in 2023. Reliance on US ICT goods decreased between 2018 and 2021, only to recover to 0.61 in 2023.

Policies
In its campaign to increase resilience and reduce reliance, the United Kingdom focuses heavily on critical technology supply chains. The „Telecommunications (Security) Act” of 2021 marked the most decisive move. It explicitly named “dependence” as an underlying problem, while banning specific foreign vendors - most notably Huawei - from the national 5G network. The Ministry of Defence Sovereign Cloud contract in 2025 provided large funding for cloud infrastructure to Google.