Growing London as a digital centre London has been receiving a lot of column inches recently pushing the capitals growth as a technology center, at the same time government led initiates have pushed the same agenda.With the economic pressure of 2012 the government has been quick to support the growing London IT industry, however the attempt to develop London into a technology hub has been met with long term obstacles.

At the Inno Tech Summit in London today, some of the issues which are affecting London’s attempts to position itself digital centre where detailed by leaders within the industry. Charles Irving, co-founder of Pond Ventures, spoke to delegates about the lack of investors with knowledge of the industry, saying: "We are a long, long way to having smarter investors in Europe."

While the government have taken steps to promote digital start-ups by providing tax breaks in the 2012 budget and encouraging the growth of hubs containing up and coming business, Irving said that this is of little actual importance to investors. Companies are looking for cheap locations for development and London fails to compete with other markets such as Berlin, "As investors, we could not care less if [the start-up] is in London, Berlin or Silicon Valley.”

While companies and investors are looking for talent which London possesses, the city is unattractive economically in comparison to nearby neighbours. There is risk of a brain-drain where talent grown in London is taken to develop technology in cheaper locations. Irving suggested that the support of tech city and other hub ventures was also missing the end objective and that customers represent a more effective if figurative hub to base business around.

Boris Johnson’s campaigning in the run up to mayoral elections included his pledge to turn London into one of the top digital cities and being number one for Wi-Fi connectivity, however government input can only achieve so much progress. The growth of the UK digital industry depends on expanding the UK consumer base and reducing operating costs for companies.