The headline numbers are striking. Aggregate revenue across UK medtech companies filing full accounts rose from £5.3bn in 2015 to £10.9bn in 2024. The number of companies in the dataset grew from 111 to 147. But the growth story is more complex than it first appears.
The growth is real
Aggregate revenue from UK medtech companies filing full accounts has grown every year bar one since 2015. The dip in 2023 — from £10.1bn to £8.8bn — reflects filing timing rather than contraction: several large companies with September year-ends had not yet filed at the time of extraction. By 2024, the total recovered to a new high of £10.9bn.
The weighted year-on-year growth rate — comparing only companies that filed in both consecutive years — averaged 6.2% across the decade, outpacing UK GDP growth and general inflation. In 2024, the like-for-like panel of 129 companies grew a weighted 11.3%.
Growth is concentrated at the top
The £50M+ revenue band tells the clearest story. In 2015, 27 companies generated £4.1bn between them. By 2024, 52 companies in this band contributed £9.4bn — nearly 86% of the sector’s total revenue. The mid-market (£10M–50M) has grown in company count but not dramatically in total revenue, suggesting that companies either scale past £50M or stagnate.
Between 2015 and 2024, the number of £10M–50M companies grew from 48 to 56. But their aggregate revenue barely moved: £1.1bn to £1.4bn. The action is at the extremes — companies either break through to £50M+ or remain small.
Profitability is falling
In 2015, 77.5% of revenue-generating medtech companies were profitable. By 2024, that figure had dropped to 50.3%. This is not a Covid artefact — the decline was steady and pre-dates the pandemic.
The driver is compositional. The tracker now includes more early-stage companies — venture-backed diagnostics and digital health firms that are growing revenue but investing heavily ahead of profitability. In 2015, the dataset skewed toward established device manufacturers. By 2024 it captures the full spectrum, including companies that are deliberately loss-making as they scale.
The profitability decline is partly compositional — more early-stage companies in the dataset. But even within the £10M–50M band, the loss-making share has grown. This is not just a venture-stage phenomenon.
Where the revenue sits
Medical devices dominate. The 107 device companies with full accounts generate £5.7bn in aggregate revenue. Diagnostics (£1.9bn from 28 companies) and services (£1.2bn from 17) follow. Digital health and AI/SaMD companies — the fastest-growing categories by company count — remain small in revenue terms: 12 digital health companies at £238M and 18 AI/SaMD companies at £158M.
The revenue gap between traditional devices and digital health reflects maturity, not potential. Device companies have decades of NHS procurement behind them. Digital health companies are typically five to ten years old and still navigating reimbursement.
What this means
UK MedTech is growing — unambiguously. Revenue has doubled in a decade, employment is up, and the number of companies crossing £10M in revenue averages eight per year. But the growth is unevenly distributed, and the profitability decline is a structural concern.
For investors, the question is whether the expanding loss-making tail represents healthy venture-stage investment or overcrowding in categories that won’t sustain many winners. For companies approaching the NHS, the mid-market squeeze suggests that getting to £10M revenue is not enough — the jump to £50M requires a different kind of commercial capability.
For policymakers, the data shows an ecosystem that is producing companies but not yet converting them into large employers at scale. The aggregate employment numbers look healthy, but they are dominated by a handful of subsidiaries of global manufacturers. The indigenous UK medtech sector is still overwhelmingly small.
We can now cross-reference these financial trajectories against NIHR and UKRI research funding. Do publicly-funded companies grow faster? Survive longer? Reach profitability sooner? That analysis is coming.