UK Innovation Map
Compare placesDifferent, not ranked.
Two or three clusters, read side by side across sectors, research, companies, capital, infrastructure, government designations and UKIZ relevance. There is no score and no ranking: British clusters are different from one another, not better or worse than one another.
Choose up to three clusters
- London
- Cambridge
- Oxford
- Manchester
- Birmingham & the West Midlands
- Bristol & Bath
- Sheffield & Rotherham
- Leeds & West Yorkshire
- Liverpool City Region
- Newcastle & the North East
- Teesside & the Humber
- Edinburgh
- Glasgow & the Central Belt
- Belfast
- Cardiff & South Wales
- Southampton & Portsmouth
- Cornwall & Plymouth
- Nottingham & Derby
- Norwich & the East
Side by side
| Dimension | Birmingham & the West MidlandsWest Midlands | Liverpool City RegionNorth West | Southampton & PortsmouthSouth East |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sectors | Mobility & Transport Technology, Advanced Manufacturing, Quantum Technologies, Advanced Materials Supporting: Clean Energy, Digital Technologies, Defence & Security | Life Sciences, Engineering Biology, Advanced Materials Supporting: Digital Technologies, Clean Energy, Creative Industries | Defence & Security, Robotics & Autonomous Systems, Advanced Manufacturing Supporting: Clean Energy, Digital Technologies, Advanced Materials |
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| Companies | Not recorded on the map. | Not recorded on the map. | Not recorded on the map. |
| Infrastructure |
Automotive research centres, battery and vehicle test facilities and major logistics assets. | Not recorded on the map. University research institutes, automated chemistry facilities and port and logistics assets. | Not recorded on the map. Naval and maritime engineering facilities, photonics research centres and port infrastructure. |
| Capital | Corporate and supply chain finance dominate; venture capital is thin relative to industrial output. | A modest local investor base; public and charitable research funding dominate. | Prime contractor supply chain finance and public programmes rather than venture capital. |
| Government programmes |
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| What exists | The largest manufacturing base in the UK by employment, automotive and electrification engineering, rail and mobility research, and a young, large working-age population. | Infection and tropical medicine research of international standing, materials chemistry and automated discovery, a large port and a Freeport designation. | Maritime, naval and defence engineering, marine autonomy, photonics research and a major port and logistics complex. |
| What's missing · UKIZ interpretation | Ownership of the value in electrified vehicles: battery, power electronics and software increasingly sit outside the region and outside the UK. Innovation-active SME supply chains are under-capitalised. | Translation capacity: strong discovery science with limited local scale-up manufacturing and limited early-stage capital to hold companies in the city region. | Routes for smaller innovators into defence and maritime procurement, and a civil market for capability developed for defence customers. |
| What could connect · UKIZ interpretation | Midlands manufacturing paired with battery and power electronics research, North East battery production and Coventry testing capability as a single electrification value chain. | Infection and biologics research connected to North West and Teesside biomanufacturing capacity, with the port used for export rather than only import. | Marine autonomy and photonics connected to Plymouth marine capability, Bristol robotics and offshore energy operations: the same technologies serving defence, energy and shipping. |
| UKIZ relevance | The region's transition depends on owning the new value in a vehicle rather than assembling someone else's. The proposed Midlands zone focuses on batteries, power electronics and software. | Discovery and manufacture here are unusually well connected, with scale-up routes that are already in use. The proposed Manchester mission treats the North West as one health and biomanufacturing geography. | Marine autonomy is where defence, robotics and clean energy meet. The proposed Cornwall & Devon marine mission connects to this capability directly. |
| Last verified | 15 August 2026 | 15 August 2026 | 15 August 2026 |
Proposed by UKIZ · independent · not a government designation