The 100 coolest people in UK tech
Shayanne Gal/Business Insider
It has been an epochal year for the British technology industry, provoking searching questions about protecting people's privacy and safety, and regulating Silicon Valley's behemoths.
At the centre of it all was Facebook, humbled by the Cambridge Analytica scandal which took place on British soil. But at the same time there has been cutting edge technological developments, blockbuster funding rounds, and exciting new players entering the space.
Every year, Business insider publishes the UK Tech 100 - a ranking of the 100 coolest people in the UK tech scene. It celebrates the vibrant array of people working to scale companies, develop exciting new research, and shed light on the latest advances (and scandals) in the industry.
We define "cool" as having done influential and interesting things since we last compiled this list in October 2017 - whether that's getting a new job, raising money, growing a giant audience on YouTube, or just being really, really good at Fortnite.
Scroll on to see the 2018 edition of the UK Tech 100, ranked in ascending order.
Jake Kanter and Sam Shead contributed to reporting.
UK Tech 100 is sponsored by Techspace and Getty Images:
Techspace/Getty
100. YouTube’s bolshy British boxer, KSI
99. Martin Lewis, the millionaire suing Facebook over scam bitcoin ads
98. Sharon White, Ofcom CEO has tech in her sights
97. The union thorn in Uber’s side, Steve McNamara
96. Allister Heath, the Sunday Telegraph editor revitalising tech
95. Hadley Beeman, the NHS’s brand new head of tech
94. Doug Gurr, growing Amazon in the UK — despite Brexit
93. Sir Tim Berners-Lee, invented the world wide web and lives to regret it
92. Emily Spaven, a veteran journalist trying to shake up LinkedIn
91. Alex Lovén, the richest young entrepreneur in Britain
90. Maisie Williams, the "Game of Thrones" actress fighting nepotism in entertainment
89. Tom Scott, the educational YouTuber who hit a million subscribers
88. Jay Marine, the man taking the Premier League online
87. Andy Serkis, Britain's motion-capture trailblazer
86. Eileen Burbidge, the early Skype employee with many tech hats
85. Ray Chohan, expanding promising startup PatSnap's operations in the West
84. Christian Owens, the serial entrepreneur who quit school for startup life
83. Shazam backer Simon Murdoch
82. James Williams, the philosophical ex-Googler who turned his back on big tech
81. Transport for London’s legal bulldog, Martin Chamberlain QC
80. Damian Collins, the lawmaker feared by big tech
79. The founders of Fat Llama, winning investment from Y Combinator
78. Julien Codorniou, the exec building Facebook’s answer to Slack — from London
77. Dan Middleton, a British YouTuber making big bucks off Minecraft
76. Jeremy Burge, the Australian king of emojis
75. Young, ambitious, and highly networked investor Ophelia Brown
74. Bernard Liautaud, a European investor hedging his bets after Brexit
73. Ingrid Lunden, Techcrunch’s one-woman scoop machine
72. Tamara Rajah, set up the first online shop for people living with cancer
71. Matt Hancock, the app-owning politician evangelising tech in the NHS
70. Nicola Mendelsohn, the Facebook executive fighting cancer
69. Romi Savova, a young entrepreneur trying to make pensions manageable for millennials
68. Uber’s policewoman, Helen Chapman
67. Ed Lascelles, Albion’s rock and roll venture capitalist
66. Joon Ian Wong, growing the HODLers’ favourite source of news
65. Mixcloud's founders, veterans of the London startup scene
64. Robin Klein and Saul Klein, the father-son investors that left Index to start their own VC
63. Matt Clifford and Alice Bentinck, the McKinsey & Co suits that reinvented themselves as savvy startup builders
62. Stephen Fitzpatrick, the CEO using F1 technology to make flying cars
61. Meri Williams, the new CTO of Monzo
60. Poppy Gustafsson and Nicole Eagan, leading Darktrace to unicorn status
59. Podcasting don Myke Hurley
58. Phoebe Hugh, an InsurTech entrepreneur looking to take the pain out of finding cover
57. Will Eastcott, the founder of Snap’s only UK acquisition
56. Carolina Brochado, investing Atomico’s millions
55. Chris Morton, an investor-turned-entrepreneur with backing from one of the world’s biggest luxury brands
54. Cécile Frot-Coutaz, "The X Factor" producer heads to YouTube
53. Martha Lane Fox, the British businesswoman giving the public a louder voice in shaping tech
52. Andrew Fisher, the Shazam man who sold to Apple
51. Laurel Powers-Freeling, the banker whipping Uber’s UK business into shape
50. Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia founder turned campaigner
49. Charlie Brooker, the creator of "Black Mirror"
48. Jessie Link, overseeing video engineering at Twitter and getting more girls into coding
47. Matt Bellamy, the Muse frontman who quietly invests in British AI startups
46. Carlos Espinal and Reshma Sohoni, the London duo spotting startup winners early
45. Eléonore Butler, a VC braving crypto
44. Timo Boldt, delivering meal kits to homes across the UK
43. Roland Lamb, the Harvard educated founder dreaming up new musical instruments
42. The woman teaching Alexa, Dr Catherine Breslin
41. Abakar Saidov, a recruitment-tech entrepreneur expanding into the US
40. Sadiq Khan, the London mayor holding Uber to account
39. Ali Parsa, the health-tech exec landing big deals
38. Peter Smith, boss of Britain’s buzziest blockchain business… Blockchain
37. Andrea Vedaldi, an Oxford AI professor helping Facebook
36. Alex Klein, the well-connected entrepreneur who built a Harry Potter wand
35. Bassel El Koussa, the delivery startup boss leading his business into new markets
34. The new generation of venture capital investors, Evgenia Plotnikova and Joyce Liu
33. Henrique Olifiers, building mind-bending infinite worlds
32. Azmat Yusuf, Citymapper’s founder, continues to make it easier getting from A to B
31. Kristo Käärmann, cultivating a profitable UK fintech unicorn
30. The woman building Snap outside the US, Claire Valoti
29. Claire Novorol, working to stop people Googling their ailments
28. Sebastian Riedel, the AI whizz Facebook needed on their team to fight fake news
27. Nina Kristensen and Tameem Antoniades, the gamers who sold to Microsoft
26. Tania Boler founded a kegel app company and struck a partnership with the NHS
25. Luciana Lixandru, tech investor and Deliveroo superuser
24. Elizabeth Denham, Britain’s top data cop
23. Brent Hoberman, the Lastminute.com founder investing in the next generation of entrepreneurs
22. Jay Hunt, Apple’s new European content queen
21. Index Ventures' Martin Mignot and Jan Hammer
20. 13-year-old video-game-playing wunderkind, Kyle Jackson
19. Carole Cadwalladr and Harry Davies, the reporters who exposed Facebook’s data secret
18. The cool face of fashion’s technology and startup scene, Dame Natalie Massenet
17. James Bloodworth, the undercover journalist who revealed horrific working conditions at Amazon
16. Joanna Shields, the ex-Facebook executive running an AI unicorn
15. Sean Murray, the video game visionary trying to make good on his promises
14. The chief executive of the new ARM, Graphcore’s Nigel Toon
13. Nikolay Storonsky, the app bank boss dabbling in cryptocurrencies
12. Rajeev Misra, captain of the SoftBank funding megaship
11. José Neves, founder of a newly public Farfetch
10. Dr Anne-Marie Imafidon, the computing prodigy championing women in tech
9. Stan Boland, the entrepreneur driving the UK’s autonomous car dreams
8. Tom Blomfield, the man battling banks with an app
7. Maria Raga, the boss of London’s trendiest fashion marketplace
6. Herman Narula and Rob Whitehead, Cambridge grads behind simulation startup Improbable
5. Anne Boden, the digital bank CEO who hammered out a partnership with RBS
4. Samir Desai, overseeing the next big UK tech IPO
3. Demis Hassabis, Mustafa Suleyman, and Shane Legg, DeepMind founders
2. Will Shu, the ex-banker at the helm of Deliveroo
1. Christopher Wylie, the data scientist who humbled Facebook
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