Focus on engineering biology is at the forefront of the UK government's objectives, being one of their five critical technologies (the others being quantum technologies, artifical intelligence, semiconductors, and future telecommunications), with a recent announcement of £2 billion to be invested into the field over the next 10 years. With such attention being given to engineering biology within the UK, it is critical to envisage realistic downstream channels (i.e. scale up and route to market) for this investment in order to maximise successful outcomes. This article aims to identify, from the perspective of a UK Bioplastics small and medium-sized enterprise, areas within the scope of engineering biology that should be focused on to maximise potential for success.

Keywords: biochemical engineering; genetic engineering; genome engineering; industry; microbial engineering; scale‐up strategies; synthetic biology.

© 2024 The Author(s). Engineering Biology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of The Institution of Engineering and Technology.