Nelson Advisors featured in The Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wale 'Medical technology in the UK: industry profile'
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Nelson Advisors featured in The Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wale 'Medical technology in the UK: industry profile'.
Source: https://www.icaew.com/library/industry-profiles/medical-technology
A profile of the UK medical technology industry, from ICAEW's Library & Information Service. Contains information on recent performance, market segmentation, trends, challenges, opportunities, and more.
Key takeaways
The UK has a large and diverse medical technology industry, generating £48bn in turnover in 2023/24 and representing the largest life sciences subsector by company count and employment.
The sector benefits from a strong research base and advances in areas such as AI and robotics, with Government policy identifying medical technology as a high-growth 'frontier' industry.
Post-Brexit regulatory divergence and slow approval processes, together with complex and fragmented NHS procurement systems, continue to hinder innovation and create barriers to market.
Demand is set to grow, particularly for innovative medical technologies, as the NHS responds to an ageing population, rising chronic disease and a shift towards prevention, community settings and digitally enabled healthcare.
Access to finance remains a major hurdle for SMEs seeking to commercialise and scale-up, whilst rising manufacturing and sustainability costs add further pressure across the sector.
In July 2025, the MHRA announced proposals to introduce international reliance routes to address some of the barriers arising from regulatory divergence. Under these plans, certain devices approved by trusted regulators in Australia, Canada and the United States would be eligible for a streamlined route to the UK market, an initiative welcomed by the sector. However, with reliance routes not expected to be fully operational until 2027, a key decision for manufacturers in 2026 according to Nelson Advisors is whether to invest in the existing UKCA process or wait for the streamlined international route, risking a delay in market entry.
Scaling digital innovations within the NHS is currently challenging however, with around 90% of AI tools remaining confined to pilot phases according to Nelson Advisers. Complex procurement and local governance processes, alongside fragmented and outdated IT infrastructure, create significant barriers. As BCG also point out, inconsistent data-sharing and limited data integration across organisations hinder its use for insight generation, with gaps in NHS workforce capacity and digital skills further constraining the deployment of new technologies.
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Source: https://www.icaew.com/library/industry-profiles/medical-technology