The UK has dropped two places to seventh in the global league of countries’ technical readiness for the digital world.

Denmark is still top, followed by the US and Sweden in joint second, according to the annual rankings produced by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU).

But Asian countries are moving faster than their European and American rivals, with Hong Kong and Singapore leapfrogging the UK to fourth and sixth place respectively. Other Asian economies including South Korea and Japan are also rising fast.

One reason behind the changes is an alteration in the measurement criteria to reflect the shift in focus from infrastructure availability to the use and take-up of digital services.

Government involvement is more important than ever, both as a user of technology and in shaping the legal and business environments, says Denis McCauley, EIU director of global technology research.

‘We think that government foresight and consistent implementation of strategy in areas such as e-government and competition policy are important to the digital development mix,’ said McCauley.

‘In these areas some Asian countries are moving up the rankings because of their consistent, single-minded and concerted commitment to areas of IT development,’ he said.

The EIU rankings, produced in collaboration with the IBM Institute for Business Value, place growing weight on development of digital identification systems.

‘Identity cards are obviously controversial, but generally speaking we feel that if they are used properly, with the right safeguards, then some form of digital authentication is very useful to society,’ said McCauley.

‘This is an area where the UK has moved more slowly than some of its European partners.’