UK innovation survey 2023 – results for Scotland

Data and Methodology

This report presents the findings from the UK Innovation Survey 2023 (UKIS 2023), covering the three-year period from 2020 to 2022. It presents results for Scotland and the UK as whole and includes comparisons with previous surveys where appropriate. The UKIS has been carried out every two years since 2005.

The UKIS 2023 was funded and developed by the UK Government Department for Business and Trade (DBT). It was administered by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) on behalf of DBT and the UK Government Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT). DBT published headline results (including some figures for Scotland) from UKIS 2023 on 9th May 2024 in their Official Statistics publication ‘United Kingdom innovation survey 2023: report’. They provided the Scottish Government with the survey dataset to allow us to undertake our own analysis and publish more detailed breakdowns for Scotland than those available in their publication. This publication presents the results of our analysis. An Excel workbook (UK innovation survey 2023 – results for Scotland – tables.xlsx) containing tables to accompany the publication is available in the ’Supporting documents’ section.

Sample selection for the UKIS 2023 was conducted by the ONS and followed very similar sampling methodology to the previous surveys. The survey sampled 32,273 UK businesses with ten or more employees from Standard Industrial Classification 2007 (SIC 2007) sectors B to N. It was carried out in 2023 and asked businesses about their innovation activities in 2020 to 2022 (2020, 2021 and 2022). The three year reporting period is consistent with previous UKIS surveys and is widely used internationally. If information was not available for calendar years, businesses were asked that their return covered the nearest financial years.

The survey was voluntary and was conducted primarily through an electronic questionnaire. Businesses that did not complete an electronic response were contacted for a telephone interview. The questionnaire was broadly similar to that used for previous surveys but with the following key differences:

• The UKIS 2023 definition of business process innovator is broader than the definition of ‘process innovator’ used in previous surveys and is therefore not directly comparable. To provide an approximate time series for business process innovators in our tables, we have made the assumption that business process innovators in UKIS 2023 is roughly equivalent to businesses in previous surveys that were either 'process innovators' or 'wider innovators'. 'Wider innovators' were businesses that develop new or significantly improved forms of organisation, business structures, practices or marketing concepts/strategies. 'Process innovators' were businesses with significant changes in the way that goods or services are produced or provided. Users should note that the UKIS 2023 includes methods of organising HR management and marketing methods for after sales services in the definition of business process innovator, these were not included explicitly in earlier surveys' definitions of either 'wider innovators' or 'process innovators'. Therefore, caution is advised when looking at the change between 2018 to 2020 and 2020 to 2022.
• The co-operation question was asked slightly differently to previous surveys. A filter question was introduced, so that businesses who did not co-operate with other businesses or organisations were no longer asked detailed breakdowns on their collaboration activities. Responses to the questions have been somewhat different and for this reason information is only presented for UKIS 2023 (reporting period 2020 to 2022).
• Businesses were no longer asked about the value of their exports, just whether they exported in calendar year 2022 or not.
• New questions on the use of management technology, production enhancing technology and innovations with environmental benefits (IWEB) were included. Results from these questions are included in the Tables 24 to 27 in the Excel workbook (UKIS 2023 – results for Scotland – tables) in the ‘Supporting documents’ section.

Overall, 14,570 businesses in the UK responded to the UKIS 2023, giving a response rate of 45.1%. 1,547 businesses based in Scotland responded, giving a Scottish response rate of 45.7%. For the previous survey (UKIS 2021, covering the three-year period from 2018 to 2020), the UK response rate was 42.6% and the Scottish response rate was 43.1%.

This report uses weighted data to be representative of the business population. The responses were weighted to the total business population (with 10+ employees), using the Inter-Departmental Business Register (IDBR). They were not weighted by factors which would give more weight to larger businesses, such as employment or turnover.

Due to smaller sample sizes for sub-groups, the survey's estimates may be affected by sampling errors and therefore apparent differences of a few percentage points may not reflect real differences in the population.

Geographic locations of businesses are based on businesses’ head office location. Business size, given by number of employees, is the total number of employees anywhere in the UK, irrespective of head office location. For example, a business in Scotland with 250 employees may have some based at their head office in Scotland and others based elsewhere in the UK.

The Definitions section explains the key terms used to describe innovation in this publication.

Further information on the UKIS, including the questionnaires used for UKIS 2023 and earlier surveys, is available at the UKIS survey collection section of the gov.uk website.