The UK digital identity sector is on course to reach an estimated £4 billion in revenue by 2030, according to figures from the Office for Digital Identities and Attributes (OfDIA).
The forecast follows UK digital identity firms generating £2.05 billion annual revenue in 2023-2024. It produces £858 million Gross Value Added (GVA) and has 10,813 full-time employees.
Two-hundred and seventy firms currently operate in the UK digital identity market. Of these, 231 are dedicated providers focused on digital identity, and 39 are diversified firms offering digital identity alongside other services.
OfDIA, which was officially launched in October 2024 as part of the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT), commissioned Oliver Wyman, Perspective Economics and Projects by IF to conduct the study. It examined the UK’s digital identity industry’s size, employment and revenue.
The research shows that approximately half of firms are registered in London, with clusters in the South East (15 percent) and North West (nine percent of firms, 15 percent of employment).
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The sector serves a wide range of industries, including financial services (85 percent of providers), health and public sector (58 percent), and technology sectors (57 percent).
It also demonstrates strong productivity, with GVA per employee (£79,366) approximately 42 percent higher than average UK employee estimates .
Employment has grown consistently (average of 11.7 percent per annum) over the past five years
OfDIA said additional research including market adoption, barriers and opportunities for growth, and consumer understanding of digital identity is underway, and will be shared in 2025.
UK digital identity watchdog
On its website, OfDIA said it is responsible for “enabling a trusted and secure digital identity market.” It aims to achieve this through five ways:
- Developing and maintaining the UK digital identity and attributes trust framework, against which digital identity services can be certified
- Maintaining a register of organisations who have had their services certified against the trust framework
- Issuing a trust mark that provides a convenient visual way for citizens and businesses to identify registered digital identity services
- Engaging internationally to support development of digital identities that are interoperable and reusable
- Encouraging the market to grow in a way which supports inclusion, with the aim of making sure digital identity services can be accessed by all those who choose to use them
