The UK Has The Trade Strategy: Now It Needs A Digital Strategy To Match

The UK Government has recently published its new Trade Strategy, an ambitious plan to grow exports, strengthen global partnerships, and position the UK as a leading trading nation. The Strategy rightly positions international trade as a key lever for economic growth. As someone working at the intersection of trade, digital transformation, and growth, I’ve been reflecting on this strategy and what it means for the future of UK businesses.

My main conclusion is this: while the Strategy sets the right direction, its success will depend on how effectively all stakeholders embrace digitisation to ensure seamless trade. Without that foundation, we risk falling short of the ambition. With it, we can supercharge growth, resilience and competitiveness.

A Strategy With Strong Foundations

The new Trade Strategy builds on some early wins: a landmark Free Trade Agreement with India, a refreshed US-UK economic deal and a new Strategic Partnership with the EU. It recognises the UK’s strength as a services superpower, the need to support high-growth sectors like clean energy and advanced manufacturing, and the importance of secure supply chains in a volatile world.

Crucially, the strategy acknowledges that digital and data are now inseparable from trade itself. From cutting red tape at borders to piloting digital trade corridors and electronic trade documents to data-driven supply chain monitoring, digital transformation runs through the document.

But ambition on paper is only the start. The real challenge is scaling adoption, building interoperability, and ensuring all businesses, especially SMEs, can harness the benefits.

This is one of the key takeaways of the Roadmap to Digitise UK Trade, updated earlier this year by ICC United Kingdom. The roadmap sets out a practical, phased journey from paper-based trade to a fully digital ecosystem. It also highlights the scale of the prize: an estimated £25 billion boost to UK GDP, £224 billion in efficiency savings, and significant benefits for SMEs, who stand to grow their export capacity by up to 35%.

Where Are Businesses Feeling The Pressure?

As the Institute of Export recently highlighted, for many UK businesses the border operates as a “tax on efficiency.” With traders forced to re-enter data across multiple systems and paperwork errors causing last-minute delays, it’s no surprise many smaller firms are deterred from exporting altogether.

HMRC’s Customs Administration Burden research confirms this, pointing out that while most traders report delays at the border, the impact is especially acute for smaller businesses. Many SMEs still rely on manual data processes and have limited knowledge of detailed customs requirements such as commodity codes. This combination makes them more vulnerable to errors, longer clearance times, which can erode trust, with some reporting that repeated delays have led buyers abroad to switch suppliers.

How Digital Can Supercharge The Trade Strategy

At Transform, we think about the role of digital and data in trade through three lenses: compliance, efficiency and competitiveness. Each maps directly to the government’s strategic priorities and each can be dramatically accelerated through digitalisation.

Compliance and Resilience

The government’s strategy commits to accountable trade and stronger trade defences. Digitalisation can strengthen this by, among other things:

• Using AI and real-time data to flag compliance risks before they escalate
• Enabling secure, tamper-proof digital trade documents that reduce fraud
• Providing supply chain visibility to anticipate shocks and manage risks

A smart border is also a safer border, one that improves enforcement and strengthens trade relationships.

Efficiency

The strategy promises to cut red tape at the border and make trading easier, especially for SMEs. Digitalisation can deliver this through:

• The implementation of digital trade corridors that can cut clearance times by up to 40%
• Creating standardised data flows that reduce duplication, with existing pilots showing a significant reduction in paper documents and trade-related emails
• Using advanced analytics that streamline customs, finance, and logistics, among many other use cases.

In other words, digitalisation addresses the “tax on efficiency” head-on, saving businesses time, reducing cost and lowering delivery risks.

Competitiveness and Growth

The strategy’s big bet is on UK competitiveness. Digitalisation allows trade and investment to become a platform for growth by:

• Converting trade data into actionable insights that guide market entry, expansion, and investment decisions
• Using AI and advanced analytics to identify new demand, emerging markets, and untapped supply chains
• Enabling UK businesses to build a digital-first reputation, making them more attractive globally

Global trade is more than a policy lever, it’s a platform for growth that allows businesses to expand, adapt, and thrive in a very volatile global economy.

From Strategy To Implementation

While the Trade Strategy is an ambitious document, digital adoption remains patchy. Many SMEs are still unaware of the benefits of electronic trade documents or lack the tools to integrate them into their systems. Interoperability between platforms is limited, and responsibility is fragmented across government and industry. If we leave these gaps unaddressed, the UK risks having world-leading policy that fails to translate into real-world business outcomes.

That’s where the public and private sector must collaborate. Organisations that combine expertise in digital transformation, data strategy, and change management can help bridge the gap between strategy and implementation. The goal is to embed digital into day-to-day trade activity by providing accessible tools, automation, and data-driven insights. The rewards are clear: faster trade, stronger compliance, and a competitive edge for UK exporters.

Digital-first trade is not tomorrow’s ambition. It’s today’s necessity. The UK has the right strategy. Now it needs a trading system fit for the economy it wants to build.