By Stuart Watkins | December 2025

London has claimed second place in the global Smart Centres Index, published this month by Z/Yen’s Long Finance Initiative. Rising from third position, London now trails only Zurich in a ranking that measures technology and innovation capability across 77 commercial centres worldwide.

For those of us who operate across both London and Jersey, this matters. After thirty years working at the intersection of technology and business, I’ve watched London evolve from an emerging digital market to a global powerhouse. What the Smart Centres Index reveals is why that transformation has succeeded, and what smaller jurisdictions can learn from it.

Why London is Rising

The Smart Centres Index tracks three dimensions: Innovation Support, measuring regulatory and ecosystem backing for technology; Creative Intensity, examining how deeply innovation is embedded in the economy; and Delivery Capability, assessing the quality of work being produced.

London scores in the top five globally across all three. It ranks 4th for Innovation Support, 5th for Creative Intensity, and 3rd for Delivery Capability. This balance is critical. The report identifies centres with consistent strength across dimensions as more resilient than those with spiky profiles.

But London’s real advantage lies in its ecosystem. The report highlights a ‘golden triangle’ connecting London with Oxford, ranked 5th globally, and Cambridge at 9th. This concentration of world-class universities, research institutions, and commercial capability creates a talent pipeline that few regions can match.

“More than 80% of survey respondents expect London to improve or improve significantly over the next two to three years.”

The confidence is striking. Human capital factors correlate most strongly with success in the index, and London’s depth of talent across technology, financial services, and professional services creates compounding advantages.

Understanding What Drives the Rankings

The SCI combines 134 instrumental factors, quantitative measures from sources including the World Bank, OECD, and United Nations, with over 2,300 professional assessments. The factors most closely correlated with high rankings tell an interesting story.

The OECD Country Risk Classification shows the strongest correlation, followed by the Urban Mobility Readiness Index and the Global Innovation Index. World Digital Competitiveness, the Global Financial Centres Index, and the Global Green Finance Index also feature prominently.

When isolating technology-specific factors, the World Digital Competitiveness Ranking leads, followed by Creative Outputs from the Global Innovation Index, the FinTech Index, Scientific Infrastructure measures, and the Government AI Readiness Index. These aren’t abstract metrics. They reflect practical capabilities: can a centre attract and retain talent, support technology development, and deliver results?

Jersey’s Position: Context Matters

Jersey ranks 19th globally in the Smart Centres Index, with a rating of 705. To put this in perspective, Jersey outperforms Dublin at 22nd, Luxembourg at 23rd, Hong Kong at 21st, and Berlin at 20th. For a jurisdiction of 100,000 people competing against major metropolitan centres with populations in the millions, this is a significant achievement.

However, context requires honesty. Jersey dropped six places from the previous index, falling from 13th to 19th, despite its absolute rating improving by 17 points. The island isn’t declining; other centres are simply improving faster.

Jersey’s profile remains balanced. Innovation Support is the island’s relative strength at rank 14, with Creative Intensity at 18 and Delivery Capability at 19. This equilibrium matters. The report identifies balanced centres as more resilient, better positioned to weather shifts in any single dimension.

The Innovation Island Opportunity

Digital Jersey’s vision for the island to become a ‘truly smart island’ aligns directly with what the index measures and rewards. The infrastructure is already in place: Sandbox Jersey provides a testbed environment for companies to trial new technologies in a well-regulated setting; the Digital Jersey Hub and DJX innovation lab offer physical spaces for development and collaboration; Impact Jersey funds solutions to real island challenges.

The newly established Jersey AI Council, bringing together industry, public sector, and regulatory expertise, demonstrates exactly the kind of joined-up approach that drives rankings. The AI Roadmap being developed this year positions the island to capitalise on what survey respondents identified as the technology most likely to impact industry over the next five years: 24% cited artificial intelligence, digital, and computing as having greatest impact, ahead of energy and environmental technology at 17% and robotics at 14%.

Tony Moretta, Digital Jersey’s CEO, has emphasised the importance of an ‘innovation-first mindset’ and encouraged both private and public sectors to ‘rip up the rulebook’ when driving genuine innovation. This willingness to move quickly, to treat the island as a living laboratory for technology solutions, is precisely what the Smart Centres Index rewards in its Innovation Support dimension.

“Jersey’s campus-like environment, advanced infrastructure, and driven digital community give it all the right ingredients to realise its smart island aspirations.”

The London-Jersey Proposition

For businesses operating across both jurisdictions, as my agencies Devstars and LWDA do, London’s rise creates opportunity rather than competition. The golden triangle model demonstrates the power of ecosystem relationships. Jersey can position itself as an extension of that ecosystem, offering complementary capabilities.

London provides depth: access to talent at scale, established networks, and the creative intensity that comes from a city of nine million. Jersey provides agility: regulatory responsiveness, a testbed environment for innovation, and the ability to move quickly without bureaucratic inertia.

Having delivered digital solutions for clients ranging from global brands like Nokia and SlimFast to specialist firms like Investors in Property, I’ve observed that sustainable advantage rarely comes from technology alone. It comes from combining technical capability with understanding of context, regulation, and commercial reality. The London-Jersey axis offers precisely this combination.

What Needs to Happen Next

The Smart Centres Index identifies three factors driving performance in leading centres.

First, regulatory environments that embed innovation into policymaking. Jersey scores well here. The JFSC’s approach to fintech licensing and Digital Jersey’s role in supporting technology adoption demonstrate genuine regulatory innovation. The challenge is maintaining pace as other centres catch up.

Second, tax systems that provide predictability alongside competitive rates. Survey respondents emphasised that stability matters as much as rates. Jersey’s well-understood and consistent tax environment is an asset, but one that requires active communication rather than assumption.

Third, comprehensive strategies for talent attraction and retention. This is Jersey’s most significant challenge. The report repeatedly cites skills shortages and brain drain across regions. Jersey’s quality of life advantages, the schools, safety, outdoor lifestyle, and manageable commutes, could be positioned more aggressively as talent retention factors. Remote and hybrid working have made location decisions about lifestyle, not just office proximity.

Looking Forward

London’s second-place ranking validates a strategy of combining world-class talent, supportive regulation, and commercial depth. The UK’s performance more broadly, with Oxford and Cambridge also in the top ten, demonstrates the power of concentrated ecosystems.

Jersey’s 19th place, ahead of substantially larger financial centres, confirms that the island is taken seriously as a location for technology and innovation. The drop in ranking, despite improved ratings, signals that maintaining position requires accelerating, not just continuing, current efforts.

The Innovation Island vision, the smart island ambition, Impact Jersey, Sandbox Jersey, the AI Council, and the broader digital ecosystem provide the foundations. The question now is execution: can Jersey improve at the pace required to maintain its position among global leaders?

Operating across both London and Jersey, I remain optimistic. The combination of London’s depth and Jersey’s agility creates genuine competitive advantage. Both jurisdictions are improving. The task is ensuring Jersey improves faster.

Stuart Watkins is the founder of Devstars (established 2003) and LWDA, bespoke web development and digital growth consultancies operating from Jersey and London. With over 30 years of experience in digital marketing and development, he has delivered solutions for clients including Nokia, Taylor Swift, Headmasters, SlimFast, and Investors in Property. He is a Digital Jersey member and is based in Jersey.

Source: Smart Centres Index 12, Z/Yen Group and Long Finance, December 2025. Full report available at smartcentresindex.net