Oxfordshire targets 20 unicorns and 30,000 jobs by 2035

Oxfordshire’s Equinox partnership has launched a strategy to develop 20 billion-dollar businesses, create 30,000 jobs and attract more than £1bn a year in investment into the county’s innovation economy by 2035.

The 10-year Equinox 2035 Strategy was presented at the House of Commons on 19 October, as reported by UKTN. It addresses the difficulty of turning university research and early-stage businesses into internationally competitive companies that retain their headquarters and expand in Britain.

What happened

The partnership has set specific targets for broadening the region’s funding base: securing investment from 10 leading US venture capital funds and 10 UK pension funds. These sit alongside an ambition to establish permanent operations in Oxfordshire for six global corporations.

Equinox also wants the county to rank among the world’s three most innovation-intensive clusters on a per-capita basis. Its programme combines efforts to attract international businesses with support for companies already operating locally, rather than relying solely on new startup formation.

Growth capital is a particular concern for deep-tech companies, whose technology can require substantial spending and lengthy development before it becomes commercially scalable. The strategy proposes stronger investment-readiness support and closer connections between high-growth businesses, institutional investors and international venture capital providers.

The emphasis on institutional funding comes alongside other efforts to expand finance for technology businesses, including the British Business Bank’s £180m commitment to six AI funds. Equinox’s own targets cover both domestic pension capital and overseas venture investors.

Four priorities organise the strategy: international competitiveness, attracting capital, spreading economic opportunity and improving information about the regional innovation economy. The employment and data commitments therefore form part of the programme alongside its company valuation and investment targets.

The background

Equinox brings together companies, universities, investors and public-sector organisations, with the University of Oxford providing its secretariat. More than 100 organisations have signed its charter, while workshops and events supporting the initiative have involved over 200 people.

Oxfordshire already has approximately 3,000 high-tech businesses employing around 30,000 people. The proposed number of additional jobs matches that existing employment figure, although the strategy’s target covers the wider innovation economy.

The county’s infrastructure includes the Harwell science campus and Culham, home to the UK’s first AI Growth Zone. These provide an established base for the strategy’s efforts to attract further business activity rather than build a technology cluster from scratch.

Through Oxford University Innovation, the University of Oxford has supported the formation of more than 350 companies. Those businesses have collectively attracted more than £8bn in investment since 2011, demonstrating the scale of the university’s existing commercial activity.

Equinox also cites figures showing that Oxford spinouts raised €908m in the first half of 2026, compared with €864m across Germany’s university spinout ecosystem. Oxford accounted for approximately a fifth of European spinout investment over that period. Those figures concern university spinouts, rather than total investment across Oxfordshire’s technology businesses.

The launch follows research by Public First and the Oxford-Cambridge Supercluster Board into the research capabilities and commercial potential of the Oxford-Cambridge Growth Corridor. Equinox’s programme focuses on Oxfordshire within that broader geography.

What people are saying

Professor Irene Tracey, vice-chancellor of the University of Oxford and chair of the Equinox Council, said the central issue was retaining innovation’s economic benefits in Britain. Her priorities include keeping expanding companies in the country, giving skilled people reasons to remain and extending the gains beyond university and laboratory sites.

Peter Leek, chief scientific officer at Oxford Quantum Circuits, distinguished between Oxford’s strengths as a place to establish a business and the challenges of subsequent expansion. He identified long-term funding, specialist employees, infrastructure and customers as requirements for deep-tech companies competing internationally.

Leek also argued that founders should be able to develop global businesses without moving elsewhere as their companies grow. International connections are another strand of technology-sector development, illustrated by the UK-Germany technology corridor and its £17m quantum fund.

Ed Bussey, chief executive of Oxford Science Enterprises, backed the 20-unicorn ambition as achievable. He said the university-focused investor was building one new potential billion-pound business each month and had recorded three unicorn outcomes during the previous 12 months. These were his descriptions of its activity, rather than additional Equinox targets.

Bussey identified later-stage funding as essential if promising businesses are to expand locally instead of seeking opportunities elsewhere. He also outlined Oxford Science Enterprises’ longer-term ambition to build Britain’s first trillion-pound company, separate from the strategy’s 2035 commitments.

Anneliese Dodds, the Oxford East MP who hosted the parliamentary launch, stressed that employment growth needed to be accessible to surrounding communities. She pointed to skills investment, apprenticeships and good-quality jobs as necessary for local young people to benefit.

What happens next

Equinox plans to create a regional Inward Investment Unit, giving overseas investors, corporations and developers a single contact point for opportunities in Oxfordshire. The unit is intended to make the region easier to navigate for organisations considering investment.

That approach places a regional gateway at the centre of international engagement. Elsewhere, the Growth Company has opened a Hong Kong route for Manchester startups, another example of regional organisations developing overseas business connections.

The strategy also includes employer-led skills programmes and measures to widen access to innovation-sector employment. A shared regional data platform is planned to support investment decisions and workforce planning, connecting the programme’s funding and employment objectives.

Dr Olga Kozlova, Equinox chief executive and the University of Oxford’s director of innovation and engagement, said the partnership was moving into implementation after two years of consultation. Its delivery work will focus on helping businesses grow locally and connecting more people with the employment, skills and opportunities created by that expansion.