Barnsley, Britain’s first Tech Town: real people, real services and responsible AI
3 min read
This week the UK Government is launching its new Tech Towns programme in Barnsley. I’m delighted to share that Cisco is working alongside the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) to help bring this vision to life.
For Cisco, this is an opportunity to help explore – in one town, with real people and real services – what responsible AI, secure connectivity and digital skills could do when they are applied to the challenges communities face every day. This is a significant moment in evolving the Government’s AI Opportunities Action Plan from words to delivery.
Barnsley will be the UK’s first Tech Town: a place where AI is not an abstract idea, but a practical toolkit for better jobs, better public services and stronger local growth. We’ll work alongside Barnsley Council and the South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority to help identify where true benefit can be created.
A community-led model for AI
Tech Towns are deliberately designed to be community-led. Rather than starting with technology and looking for problems, the programme starts with local priorities: how to improve healthcare, how to make it easier to access public services, drive employment and grow the local economy.
At Cisco, that’s an approach we believe delivers impact in regions across the UK, and is a model used in our Country Digital Acceleration (CDA) programme, now in its tenth year. Cisco will explore how it can help to deliver local priorities with secure digital infrastructure, AI capabilities and skills. That means listening first, then identifying initiatives that reflect Barnsley’s strengths – from its emerging digital ecosystem at The Seam to the ambition set out in the council’s “Learning Barnsley” agenda.
The objective is that Barnsley will act as a national testbed for this work, with the clear intention that what works locally can then be replicated in other places across the UK.
Building a foundation: digital infrastructure and cybersecurity
AI thrives when underpinned by secure, resilient infrastructure. DSIT has recognised that digital infrastructure and cybersecurity are critical enablers of responsible AI adoption. Cisco brings deep expertise in both areas—credentials built over more than forty years of innovation.
We’ll explore how we can support Barnsley in strengthening its digital foundations, with the ambition to help make the town’s infrastructure more secure, scalable and ready to support new tools – from virtual care to online skills training. Residents and businesses need confidence that the systems underpinning services are resilient and trustworthy.
Building local skills for AI-powered jobs
Technology on its own does not create opportunity without the buy-in from the local community and the practical application of skills. That’s why a core focus for us is to help Barnsley’s residents to participate in, and benefit from, the new jobs AI and digital transformation will bring.
This isn’t new territory for Cisco in the UK. Through the Cisco Networking Academy, we’ve been providing digital skills courses since 1998, training close to 600,000 people – and we’re committed to supporting many more. This long-standing focus on UK digital skills underpins our belief that communities in every corner of the country should be able to benefit from technology and innovation.
In Barnsley, we’ll explore opportunities to work with local schools, colleges and the planned AI Campus to prepare young people and career-changers for high-value tech roles. AI presents an enormous opportunity to raise living standards and generate new economic growth for the UK. The goal of this collaboration is to make that opportunity real and visible at a local level—starting with Barnsley.
Accelerating AI in healthcare
One of the most exciting pilot areas to bring this Tech Town vision to life will be healthcare. Cisco’s experience leading the Lister Alliance, a group of innovative companies, academia, and NHS providers demonstrating the power of technology to improve outcomes for patients and healthcare professionals means we are well placed to help.
The opportunities to start to make the NHS 10-Year Plan a reality are significant. We will explore how AI could be applied to assessing population health needs, so services can be planned around real patterns of demand. We will look to build on work elsewhere to improve patient flow through healthcare settings, reducing bottlenecks and delays. All of this will be done depending on local need, and local decision-makers.
Looking beyond Barnsley
At the end the initiative, Cisco and DSIT will review what has worked—in infrastructure, skills and public services—and explore how Tech Towns could benefit other parts of the UK.
Our hope is Barnsley can become a blueprint: showing that when government, industry and local communities work together, AI and secure connectivity can unlock new growth, improve public services and build trust in technology.
At Cisco, we believe the UK can be at the forefront, making the country one of the very best in the world at putting AI to work. This is a clear commitment to that belief, and to working hand in hand with towns like Barnsley to make it real.
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