Northern Ireland
Belfast
Cyber security, composites and screen production, in a small city with dual market access.
Proposed by UKIZ · independent · not a government designation
The place
Belfast has built a cyber security economy with genuine international standing, alongside advanced composites and aerospace manufacture, financial technology operations and a screen production sector that keeps bringing large international productions to Northern Ireland.
The city is small, cheap by UK standards, and half an hour from a coast that people fly across continents to see.
- A compact city you can cross in twenty minutes
- Shipbuilding and aerospace manufacturing inheritance
- A young cyber and software workforce
- The Causeway coast and Mourne mountains within an hour
- Recent history that is present but not the whole story
Why Belfast?
Cyber security, composites and screen production, in a small city with dual market access.
- A cyber security cluster with university research and international employers behind it.
- Advanced composites and aerospace manufacture with decades of production experience.
- Financial technology operations serving global institutions.
- Screen and television production infrastructure used by international studios.
- The lowest housing costs of any UK capital city, and a coastline an hour away.
The market is small, so companies here sell outward from day one. Trading arrangements between Great Britain, Northern Ireland and the EU are specific and need proper advice.
What's happening here
Britain is building, and a lot of it is here.
Each item below is a real programme, institution or development with a named source. UKIZ does not publish claims it cannot point at.
Belfast has one of the largest concentrations of cyber security employment in the UK outside London
University research and international employers have built the cluster over two decades.
Invest Northern Ireland ↗
What this place is good at
Strengths, from the canonical record.
- Cyber security research and industry
- Advanced composites and aerospace manufacture
- Financial technology operations
- Film and television production
- Defence & Security
- Advanced Materials
- Financial Technology
- Creative Industries
- Digital Technologies
- AgriTech & FoodTech
- Advanced Manufacturing
DSIT cluster data and Northern Ireland economic statistics record cyber and composites concentration.