Endorsement route
Digital Technology
Digital technology applications are assessed by Tech Nation. It is the most prescriptive of the endorsement routes: the criteria are published, the document limits are hard, and the assessors read a great many applications from people whose CVs look much like yours. What separates an endorsement from a refusal is almost always how deliberately the evidence was chosen.
Who it's for
Who this route is for
Technical people: principal and staff engineers, CTOs, DevOps and platform engineers, data scientists, AI and machine learning specialists, cyber security experts, hardware engineers, front-end, back-end and mobile developers, UX and UI leads, SaaS architects
Business people: founders, senior commercial and product leaders with profit-and-loss responsibility in product-led digital technology companies
Investors: venture capital and private equity investors with a track record of backing digital technology businesses
Fields include fintech, artificial intelligence, cyber security, gaming, health tech, ed tech, enterprise software and hardware — the common thread is a product-led digital technology business, not simply using technology at work
Criteria
What Tech Nation assesses
One mandatory criterion that nobody can skip, plus at least two of four optional criteria. Your evidence has to be split across them deliberately — a document counted against one criterion cannot be counted again against another.
Mandatory: recognised leading talent, or potential to become one
You show that in the last five years you have been recognised as a leading talent in digital technology (exceptional talent), or that you have shown the potential to become one (exceptional promise). Recognition has to come from outside your own employer. This is the criterion the whole application hangs on.
01
A proven track record of innovation
As a founder or senior executive of a product-led digital technology company, or as an employee working on a genuinely new product, concept or field within one.
02
Recognition for work beyond your day job
Contributions that advance the field itself rather than your employer's roadmap: significant open source work, conference speaking, standards work, mentoring programmes, published thought leadership that others cite.
03
Significant technical, commercial or entrepreneurial contributions
Measurable impact as a founder, employee or board-level executive of a product-led digital technology company — revenue built, users reached, systems shipped at scale, teams grown.
04
Exceptional academic contributions
Research and academic work in the field, endorsed by an expert, where your contribution is demonstrably ahead of the field.
Documents
What you have to produce
The limits below are Tech Nation's, and they are enforced. Ten slots is not many when each one has to prove a specific thing.
A CV of up to three sides of A4, covering career history and publications
A personal statement setting out why you, why the UK, and what you will contribute
Three letters of recommendation, each up to three sides of A4 excluding the author's credentials, from established experts who have known your work for at least twelve months
At least two pieces of evidence for the mandatory criterion
At least two pieces of evidence for each of two optional criteria
No more than ten pieces of evidence in total, each no longer than three sides of A4
No document may be used twice against two different criteria
If you were a founder or senior executive in the last five years: evidence of the business, such as audited accounts, or non-audited accounts covering at least twelve months, and sales data by country
What goes wrong
The mistakes we see most on this route
Evidence that proves you are senior rather than that the field recognises you. A promotion is internal; a conference keynote, a widely-adopted open source project or independent press coverage is not.
Three letters that all come from the same company, or from people who manage you. The strongest sets mix seniority with genuine external standing.
Spending all ten evidence slots on the mandatory criterion and leaving the optional ones thin.
Recycling one impressive document across two criteria. It will be counted once.
Applying under exceptional talent when the record supports exceptional promise, because three-year settlement is attractive. Assessors see this constantly.
Treating the personal statement as a covering letter. It is the only place the separate pieces are tied into one argument.
This page is general information about the digital technology route, current as at September 2026. Endorsing bodies revise their criteria, evidence formats and service standards, so confirm the current requirements with the body assessing you, and with GOV.UK, before relying on anything here. Nothing on this page is advice on your individual case.
Is digital technology the right route for you?
Send us your CV and a short description of your work. We will tell you which route and which standard your evidence actually supports — and if it does not yet, what would change that.