Business Innovation Activity in Northern Ireland - NI statistics from the UK Innovation Survey (2025)
The most recent report presents results from the Northern Ireland element of the UK Innovation Survey (UKIS) 2025. This is the fourteenth such survey and covers the three-year period from 2022 to 2024. The UKIS forms part of the wider European Community Innovation Survey and provides information on innovation activity among enterprises, including its extent and impact on businesses.
Headline Results
- The percentage of innovation active businesses in NI has decreased with three in ten businesses (30%) engaging in innovation in 2022-2024. The rate of innovation activity was lower in NI than in the UK overall, where 34% of UK businesses were innovation active in 2022-2024.
- Across the UK, the percentage of innovation active businesses ranged from 28% in Wales to 39% in the East of England. There has been a reported decrease in innovation activity across nine of the twelve regions of the UK between 2020-2022 and 2022-2024.
- As is the case across the UK, a higher proportion of large businesses (with more than 250 employees) in NI were innovation active (46%) than small and medium businesses (10-249 employees, 30%).
- ‘Meeting regulatory requirements’ has become the top-rated factor driving innovation, being of ‘high’ importance to 37% of broader innovators in NI during 2022-2024, consistent with 2020-2022.
Current publication
Archive data
Northern Ireland Innovation Survey 2006
This NI-only Innovation Survey covered the period 2003-2005, and among other things, collected information on the extent of business innovation, factors perceived to be limiting innovation, and co-operation arrangements on innovation activities.
By adopting similar methodologies as those used in the fourth Community Innovation Survey (UKIS 2005), the survey offers a time-series for 2002-2004 and 2003-2005 regional innovation activity.