Here’s a fun fact for you: The number of internet-connected devices exceeds our planet’s population! There are about 8 billion people on Earth. Do you know how many IoT devices are there? According to Statista, the number of IoT devices is somewhat around 19.8 billion globally as of 2025. What’s more interesting is that this number will go further up to a staggering 40.6 billion by 2034. So, as a business owner, you need to be aware of the emerging IoT trends in UK to enhance your business output.
Why drag businesses into these statistics when most of the IoT devices entail home appliances? Thinking that this growth in IoT devices is only attributed to home appliances is the wrong way to look at it. Businesses are increasingly getting dependent on IoT devices to strengthen their organisational management and efficiency. Even security cameras in companies can be tagged under the ambit of IoT devices. So, consulting an IoT development agency is a top priority for businesses worldwide.
Businesses are increasingly connecting various devices to the internet, turning these devices into intelligent assets. These assets can assist businesses to drive efficiency, develop models, provide solutions to business problems, and make themselves stand out in this competitive landscape. Don’t believe us? Research by Vodafone suggests that the organisations that have invested in the IoT have seen substantial increases in their ROI.
Still not convinced about the fact that IoT is revolutionising businesses across the UK? Don’t worry. We have got you covered!
In this blog, we will primarily discuss the IoT trends in UK along with the future of IoT in the UK. We will also walk you through the role of IoT development company in London, the challenges associated with it, and the popular use cases. But, first, we have to look at the evolution of IoT. So, without further ado, let’s dive right in.
The Evolution of IoT: A Look at Its History
To understand the use cases and trends associated with the Internet of Things (IoT), we need to know about its evolution by looking at its history. This way, we can understand the reasons why it was developed in the first place and why it is in high demand right now among businesses in the UK.
1982: Students’ Invention of Coke Machine (Connected)
Carnegie Mellon University students connected the departmental coke machine to the computer through the local network. It enabled them to check if Coke was available and cold. Although everyone didn’t like Coke, everyone loved the innovation. This set the ground for innovations in the field of IoT.
1989: WWW (World Wide Web) was Invented
While working at CERN, a British scientist known by the name Tim Berners-Lee invented WWW (World Wide Web). This invention paved the way for future IoT systems with communication.
1990-1993: Invention of First Ever IoT Device
In the year 1990, John Romkey built the first ever IoT device which was a toaster famously known as the “Internet Toaster”. This toaster could be turned on or off through the internet. By, 1991, he even made a crane system that inserted the bread and automated the entire process.
Then in the year 1993, the first webcam prototype (Trojan Room Coffee Pot) was installed at the Cambridge University. This enabled them to check the quantity of coffee remaining in the coffee machine.
1998: Creation of a Water Fountain (Connected)
Mark Weiser (Father of Ubiquitous Computing) crafted one connected water fountain just outside his office. The height and flow of water replicated the price trends of the stock market in real time. The 2008 financial crisis would have been a spectacular thing to watch through this connected water fountain.
1999: The Term “Internet of Things” or “IoT” was coined
In 1999, the founder of Auto-ID, Kevin Ashton titled his presentation “The Internet of Things”. He linked the internet with the idea of radio-frequency identification, which was praised for its innovation. Although Ashton’s RFID differs from IP-driven IoT, it played a crucial role in the technological advancement of the IoT landscape.
2005: Smart Home Device Creation
The famous Nabaztag, a rabbit-shaped ambient device that resembles Alexa or Google Home, was introduced and used to alert users and speak about the weather, RSS feeds, and the stock market, among other functionalities. This was the first smart home device based on the concept of IoT.
2008-09: The Birth of IoT
This year marked the extent to which the number of smart devices surpassed the population of the planet. The concept of IoT began gaining traction among the populace.
2011: Hyper-Cycle Addition to IoT for Emerging Technologies
In 2011, IoT was added to the list of hyper-cycles for emerging technologies by Gartner. This year also marked the instance of naming Vodafone as a leading company for managed services of IoT connectivity.
2013-14: Usage of Sensors
Home lighting and thermostats began using sensors to gauge the ambience accurately, allowing people to control garage doors, thermostats, and home lighting from their smart devices or phones.
2014: Smart City
Dublin’s Smart Docklands acted as a smart city testbed. It allowed a platform for innovators to test their innovations related to smart bins, sensor-driven flood management, and city sound monitoring systems sensors.
2018: IoT Entry into the Insurance and Healthcare Industry
In the healthcare sector, IoT goes by IoMT (Internet of Medical Things). IoT allows professionals to access patient data while improving wearable medical device quality. These IoT solutions entail heart-rate and glucose monitoring, geofencing, fall detection, and so on.
2020: Response to the Pandemic
Heat detection cameras were a necessity during the pandemic. It checked people’s temperature. It leveraged infrared-driven technologies and thermal cameras to detect body heat. So, these IoT devices came in handy during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Looking at the Challenges
Nothing is perfect in this imperfect world. Despite all the groundbreaking things that IoT can achieve for businesses, there are certain challenges associated with it. We will explore the top 3 challenges in this section.
1. Monitoring and Assessing Data Up-To-The-Minute
The generation of instant data is one of the biggest challenges businesses will face when it comes to IoT. Real-time data generation is pivotal to making improvements while tracking security. Some tools are available, but businesses need to emphasise analytics and tracking more.
2. Lack of Endpoint Security
The lack of endpoint security is still at the forefront of crucial IoT challenges that businesses face today. Moreover, business IoT implementation lacks home security for employees. Today, networked links and IoT devices lack preliminary sustainable security requirements in a corporate landscape.
3. Internet Bandwidth
There are IoT devices that generate audio and video data. As the number of these devices increases, businesses can face bandwidth issues. This hampers their capability of cloud data transmission. Although 5G is on the rise, outside metropolitan areas face severe bandwidth issues which can hamper business processes and efficiency.
IoT Use Cases for Industries
Before diving into the IoT trends in UK, we have to look for various popular use cases to understand the contribution of IoT in businesses. So, let’s get to it and discuss 3 industries along with their IoT use cases.
1. Manufacturing
The concepts of the IoT play an important role in insight and information acquisitions in this industry. The technology allows for enhancing worker safety, identifying issues, pinpointing weak areas, and monitoring production processes. IoT solutions boost efficiency by minimising waste and improving production quality.
When it comes to the UK, the industrial IoT market is expected to reach 5.63 billion USD in 2025. This data shows the extent of the surge in UK IoT adoption, with manufacturers utilising IoT technology to improve productivity and optimise operations.
Some practical use cases of manufacturing IoT are:
- Predictive Maintenance with IoT: The sensors in IoT devices monitor the conditions of equipment in real time. This prediction is required to prevent downtime during maintenance.
- Optimising Supply Chains: The IoT-driven monitoring and tracking of equipment, shipments, and inventory streamlines logistics while improving efficiency.
- Factory Automation: The industrial IoT optimises and controls production procedures, increasing productivity and reducing waste.
2. Healthcare
IoT solutions for healthcare have opened new avenues to unending opportunities for patients and medical professionals. The IoT data enables doctors access to updated patient data and cloud storage while sharing them with others.
This is indeed a revolutionary advantage that can save lives and reduce wait time. It further simplifies the chronic disease identification process and enables professionals to take action early. If you don’t believe us, you have to believe the data! Research shows that the UK healthcare IoT market generated revenue of 2,213.5 million in 2023 and is expected to reach 9,089.9 million by 2030.
Some real-world use cases of healthcare IoT are:
- Remote Monitoring of Patients or IoT-enabled Real-Time Analytics: Healthcare IoT devices allow doctors monitor patients remotely, without the need of clinical settings. Healthcare professionals can track vital patient metrics with these devices.
- Monitoring Assets: IoT sensors can track medical supplies and equipment. This reduces inventory costs while enhancing asset utilisation.
- Telemedicine: This technology enables VCD (Virtual Care Delivery) and remote consultations. Improvement in healthcare access, particularly in rural and underserved areas can be achieved by this.
3. Real Estate
When talking about IoT transforming industries in the UK, real estate is at the vanguard of this revolution. It is leading the way with IoT integrations into devices like cameras and sensors. These IoT-driven devices provide data about real estate properties and their surroundings.
Real estate professionals or agents can aggregate this data for browsing and listing properties in a user-friendly way. Further, real estate IoT redefines its economy by enhancing decision-making and offering energy-effective options, making properties and spaces smart.
Here, we will walk you through some practical use cases of real estate IoT:
- Smart Buildings: IoT can monitor environmental conditions like air quality, temperature, and humidity. It optimises occupant comfort and energy usage in residential and commercial buildings.
- Security Enhancements: IoT-driven cameras track equipment maintenance and performance. On the other hand, smart locks regularise access while enhancing the security of the property.
- Facility Management: This technology allows equipment maintenance and performance tracking in properties, reducing downtime and facilitating predictive maintenance.
IoT Trends in UK 2025
Now that we are aware of the IoT use cases and their evolution, let’s discuss the top IoT trends in UK.
So, be it a smart home gadget, health device, or industrial machinery driven by sensors, IoT is revolutionising how businesses and people go on with their tasks. As these devices expand more and get enhanced by technologies like artificial intelligence or AI-powered IoT (AIoT), it enables organisations creative and innovative ways to assess and serve customers. So, let’s venture into the top 5 IoT trends in UK.
1. Emotionally-Aware Devices
The rise of emotionally aware devices using AI and sensors and detecting human emotions by facial expressions, voice, or other physiological data is an application of IoT technology. For organisations, this is groundbreaking as it opens avenues to hyper-personalised CX (Customer Experience) in industries like healthcare and retail. For customers, it means empathetic and tailored technologies such as stress-relieving wearables or home devices that can react accordingly to anxiety or depression.
2. Less Connected Environment Adaptation
The staggering usage of IoT technologies means that they are being deployed in environments with less connectivity like regions with intermittent or weak cell coverage. Due to this, the UX needs adaption that doesn’t rely on exceptional connectivity. Instead, the priorities should be to gracefully bridge robust fallbacks and data gaps.
3. Self-Healing Networks
The most important thing when talking about IoT trends in UK is self-healing networks. This technology leverages AI to diagnose, resolve, and detect issues of connectivity automatically. This leads to the minimisation of maintenance needs and downtime, enhancing the efficiency and reliability of consumers and businesses. As IoT systems become more intricate, self-healing networks will guarantee smooth operations, improved UX, and reduced costs.
4. Real-Time Decision-Making
Over the past decade or so, IoT has been gaining immense traction, and 2025 is going to be the biggest leap when it comes to IoT trends in UK. But, how? With AI integration, these IoT devices will not only be connected but will soon have the capability of making real-time decisions. Businesses can tap this energy to offer hyper-personalised and smarter strategies to attract and retain customers while delivering exceptional CX. Consumers, on the other hand, can leverage this trend to simplify and predict experiences personalised according to their lifestyles.
5. Green IoT
With a rapid increase in the prioritisation of the environment, green IoT is gaining increasing popularity. This shift is compelling technology providers to adopt ethical and responsible approaches to software development and other technologies. Artificial intelligence, cloud computing, and machine learning play an important role in this. The combination of emerging technologies facilitates the creation of software that reduces environmental impact by minimising energy consumption.
How to Choose the Best IoT Development Company in London
Knowing the IoT trends in UK is not enough. You have to leverage the technology at your disposal to enhance business productivity and efficiency. An IoT development company in London is an organisation that develops IoT-driven digital solutions that monitor, detect, and gather data for a specific business. Selecting the right organisation can enhance project management and scalability while guaranteeing a future-proof ROI.
Let’s look at some of the factors to consider while selecting the right IoT development agency in London for your business.
1. Expertise and Experience
Experience is a crucial thing to consider when choosing an IoT development company. Before outsourcing or hiring an organisation, you should always look into their experience in your industry. The more experience the organisation has the more complex and varied scenarios they have faced. This could be beneficial for your business as they know their way to tackle difficult situations that may arise during the development.
2. Industry-Specific Experience
The second thing to consider is if the organisation has worked in your industry. Only having an overall experience is not enough. By enquiring about the industry they serve, you can find an IoT development company that has exceptional ideas about your industry. This will allow the services to align perfectly with your business objectives.
3. Technologies Being Used
While looking at the IoT services being provided by an IoT development company in London, you have to talk to them about the technologies being used in the development process. The company must have a varied range of services with the latest technologies. It offers you the flexibility to choose the technologies related to your business requirements.
4. Testing and QA (Quality Assurance)
IoT development is not the end of it. The company should facilitate testing and quality checks before implementing them for your business. A lack of proper QA and testing might hamper the IoT product after implementation.
5. Communication
In any development project, communication is the key. It contributes massively to the overall success of the project. You should always seek a company that guarantees a consistent communication channel, providing answers to queries in a timely manner. It should also keep you posted about the development process including milestones and hurdles. This enhances collaboration between the IoT development agency in London and your business.
Webskitters Ltd.: Your Go-To Destination for Exceptional IoT Solutions
The IoT is transforming human-machine interaction, enabling a more efficient, connected, and convenient life. With the rise of devices that seamlessly communicate and shares data, Internet of Things opens up the gates to unending opportunities of optimisation, innovation, and automation across a wide range of industries in UK.
There is no surprise in the fact that IoT can transform businesses of all sizes. By an appropriate approach to IoT implementation and knowing the IoT trends in UK, companies can realise their full potential. They can witness enhanced operational efficacy, real-time visibility, and minimised operation costs through data-driven insights.
Are you ready to outsource all your IoT development needs to a development agency? Look no further as Webskitters Ltd. is here for you.
Webskitters Ltd. has various exceptionally smart IoT services, helping businesses operate in an interconnected business environment. This will not only foster growth but will drive innovation that can make your business stand out. Being a leading IoT development company in London, we offer robust solutions that are easy to integrate.
