What our disposable friend claimed was that there are few "real tech companies", not that there are few roles. There's some truth in that; there are lots of jobs working for banks, supermarkets, consultancies, publishers, etc, but relatively few in companies which are either pure-play tech (who is the British Microsoft or Dropbox?) or even consumer web (who is the British Facebook or Google?).

That might or might not be a bad thing. It means you're more likely to be working for a real company, with a real business model, rather than some freak kept above by advertising and VC misallocation.