What does R&D really cost UK fintech?

Proprietary insights from 35 UK fintech companies and 58 audited R&D tax relief claims — showing what companies at every stage actually spend, and where they're leaving money unclaimed.

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UK fintech companies

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Audited R&D claims

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Qualifying R&D expenditure

£0

Median R&D expenditure

Finding 01

The typical fintech claim is payroll-led — but 38% sits elsewhere.

Across the full dataset, employee costs account for 62% of qualifying spend. But more than a third of the total — £19m — sits in categories that many companies overlook entirely.

Dataset Totals

Total qualifying spend

£49.9m

Across 58 audited claims

Median R&D expenditure

£513k

Per claim

Non-payroll spend

38%

£19m outside employee costs

Claims with subcontracted R&D

28%

16 of 58 claims

Key Insight

The median claim includes zero subcontracted R&D — yet subcontracting accounts for £5.09m across the dataset. Just two claims account for 83% of all subcontracted spend. This isn't typical behaviour, but where it appears, it appears at significant scale.

Finding 02

R&D expenditure scales sharply with stage.

Venture, Growth, and Established companies don't just spend different amounts on R&D — they spend it in fundamentally different ways. The cost mix shifts as companies mature.

The Growth Stage Gap

Growth-stage companies have the lowest non-payroll diversity in the dataset — just 11.6% outside employee costs, compared to 50.2% at Venture stage and 43.1% at Established. Companies scaling fast may be tightening their claims rather than expanding them — leaving material spend uncaptured.

Finding 03

Claim size scales predictably with headcount.

R&D expenditure increases consistently as companies grow. Use this table to benchmark your company against peers of a similar size — and see what your spend could generate under the current merged scheme.

How to read this

Tax credit estimates apply the merged scheme rate of 15–16.2% for standard claims. Loss-making companies spending 30%+ of total expenditure on R&D may qualify for the R&D-intensive SME scheme at up to 27% — materially increasing the return.

Benchmark Tool

Where do you sit against your peers?

Select your company's stage and headcount to see how your R&D expenditure compares to the dataset — and what you could expect to recover.

Stage of Evolution: Select your stage Venture / Growth / Established

Employee Headcount: Select headcount band Under 5 / 5–9 / 10–24 / 25–49 / 50–99 / 100–249 / 250–499

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