Britain 'needs to catch up on cyber security exports'

Britain has a lot of catching up to do on cyber security exports, according to secretary of state for international trade Liam Fox.

Dr Fox noted that while the UK has 18 per cent of the global defence market and seven per cent of the global security market, it is currently on track to account for less than two per cent of global cyber security exports by 2021.

Speaking to Sky News, he said the figure is "almost paradoxical", since the UK is at the "cutting edge of the technology".

He added: "Even if you looked across all our security, whether that's drones, whether it's electronic surveillance, whether it's cyber, we should be able to push our security sales up to the level of our defence sales."

The minister suggested a reason for the disparity between cyber security sales and defence equipment exports was probably due to the fact that the markets are different, with the former being focused on SMEs, while the latter tends to come from large companies and governments.