If you’ve read our blog on what it means to be data-first you already understand what data-first means in the context of your IT.
It means understanding that data is your only real IT asset and that the approach to IT which makes sense and works looks like this:
Data > software > infrastructure
One of the biggest reasons this approach works is because of how critical your data is to your business. Making that data available, secure and high quality puts you in a position where you can harness its insights to drive business growth.
By working with a TSP, you can achieve this and gain the knowledge in-house to be as smart as the big companies.
That’s why we’re ranking what the biggest UK companies, from retail to manufacturing to telecoms are doing with their data – to show you what’s possible.
10. NatWest Group
NatWest, a trusted UK bank, uses data-driven insights to reduce call centre load, personalise financial guidance and identify fraud patterns in real time.
These insights emerge after structured data from accounts and unstructured data from interactions are fed into its AI assistant Cora, risk modelling systems and fraud detection algorithms.
The success of its use of data has led NatWest to pursue broader partnerships with OpenAI and Anthropic to embed generative AI into its workflows.
9. Sainsbury’s
Nectar360 is the second biggest supermarket loyalty programme in the UK, offered by Sainsbury’s.
It integrates shopping basket, online browsing and loyalty data, using this to inform business decisions surrounding suppliers, promotions and range planning.
This use of data helps Sainsbury’s calculate which promotions will best resonate with shoppers and enables suppliers to co-create data-driven marketing campaigns. Sainsbury’s forecasts that Nectar360 will deliver the business £100 million incremental profit by 2027.
8. Vodafone
Vodafone manages its business across 22 countries with the largest full fibre footprint of any broadband provider in the UK.
Its ‘Nucleus’ programme consolidates data across all its markets into a single cloud platform, giving all Vodafone teams from finance to IT to operations access to verifiable insights.
This programme has enabled Vodafone to offer more targeted customer offers and achieve better predictive network maintenance and faster product innovation across operations.
By harnessing data, Vodafone can now roll out new services such as personalised digital services and flexible tariffs more quickly, improving operational agility and customer retention.
7. Lloyds Banking Group
Lloyds Banking Group experienced net revenue growth of £2 billion from 2021 to 2024, driven by the success of its “Help Britain Prosper” strategy.
The cornerstone of this strategy has been the development of a centralised machine learning ecosystem for fraud detection, credit risk and customer personalisation, built by migrating data into Google Cloud Vertex AI.
This unified platform has allowed Lloyds’ internal teams to maintain strong financial governance, experiment more rapidly and deploy AI models consistently. Early pilots show increased fraud protection and faster customer onboarding.
6. Tesco
In 1995, Tesco introduced a loyalty scheme that would change UK retail forever.
This was the Clubcard scheme, which today collects billions of transaction records that indicate where, when and what shoppers buy. This data is used internally to make decisions on in-store layouts, pricing and promotions.
By segmenting customers, Tesco can personalise online experiences, run targeted offers and improve shelf space. Clubcard data also underpins Tesco’s retail media arm which sells anonymised shopper insights back to FMCG suppliers, creating a new high-margin revenue stream.
5. BT Group
BT is the largest provider of broadband and mobile services in the UK, serving over 25 million subscribers through brands such as Plusnet, EE and BT.
The company collects vast network data and analyses it using AI to improve bandwidth allocation, manage traffic loads and predict outages.
Internal BT teams automate fixes, reduce downtime and optimise energy consumption through predictive models. This has resulted in a fully programmable network where BT customers can configure their services in real time, reducing operational costs while improving performance.
4. BP
BP, the multinational oil and gas provider, uses enterprise data platforms such as Palantir Foundry to consolidate operational data across exploration, logistics and retail functions.
This data helps field engineers optimise drilling, traders assess energy market signals and retail teams optimise fuel pricing. BP also uses insights from predictive models to reduce emissions and equipment downtime, cutting unnecessary cost.
Data-led efficiencies helped BP achieve $0.8 billion in structural cost reductions in 2024, advancing its target of $2 billion savings by 2026.
3. Heathrow Airport
To predict demand spikes and potential bottlenecks, Heathrow Airport monitors information on passenger flow, baggage tracking and weather data through its modern data platform.
Internal operations teams use these insights to adjust gate allocation, security and staffing in real time, streamlining decision-making.
Since using this data, on-time flight arrivals have reached 81.9%, making Heathrow the most punctual hub in Europe with 98.4% of its security queue times below 5 minutes.
In the first half of 2025, 76.1% of passengers rated their experience as excellent or very good and revenue increased by 1.9% to £1,724 million.
2. AstraZeneca
AstraZeneca, the British pharmaceutical giant known for its therapeutic drugs, integrates clinical trial data, genomic datasets and patient records into its Predictive Insight Platform.
Using AI models, simulations are run to forecast trial outcomes and molecule interactions.
AstraZeneca’s R&D teams then use these insights to design leaner clinical trials and prioritise high-potential drug candidates. Its manufacturing teams use real-time process data to reduce drug variability and optimise yield.
This results in shorter discovery cycles and faster time to market for innovative therapies, driving business growth and providing vital medicines to the public.
1. Rolls-Royce
At number one is luxury car manufacturer Rolls-Royce for its extensive use of data to enhance all key business functions.
This includes telemetry data, information automatically collected from remote systems and transmitted to a central location for management, monitoring and analysis.
For example, data on engine performance such as temperature, vibration and pressure is directly streamed into Rolls-Royce’s analytics platforms.
Engineers then use these data feeds for design improvements, predictive maintenance and fuel efficiency optimisation, avoiding costly unscheduled downtime.
This has led to Rolls-Royce introducing engine health monitoring as a distinctive service, strengthening its “power-by-the-hour” model where uptime is monetised.