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 | Cardiff & South WalesWales | Glasgow & the Central BeltScotland | Nottingham & DerbyEast Midlands |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sectors | Semiconductors, Advanced Materials, Creative Industries Supporting: Clean Energy, Advanced Manufacturing, Digital Technologies | Space, Semiconductors, Quantum Technologies, Advanced Manufacturing Supporting: Clean Energy, Digital Technologies, Robotics & Autonomous Systems | Advanced Manufacturing, Clean Energy, Mobility & Transport Technology Supporting: Advanced Materials, Digital Technologies, AgriTech & FoodTech |
| Research |
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| Companies |
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| Not recorded on the map. |
| Infrastructure | Not recorded on the map. Compound semiconductor fabrication and research facilities, materials and coatings research, production studios. |
Satellite manufacturing capacity, nanofabrication cleanrooms and national manufacturing research facilities. | Not recorded on the map. Propulsion and nuclear engineering facilities, rail test capability and chemistry research centres. |
| Capital | Public and corporate capital dominate; venture funding is limited by capital intensity. | Public co-investment and specialist funds; hardware scale-up capital is scarce. | Corporate and supply chain finance; limited venture activity. |
| Government programmes |
| No place-based designation recorded. |
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| What exists | The UK's compound semiconductor cluster, combining research, fabrication and supply chain, alongside steel and coatings materials research, and a significant screen production economy. | More small satellites built here than anywhere else in Europe, quantum imaging and nanofabrication research, and a large applied engineering, manufacturing and energy research base. | Aerospace propulsion and small modular reactor engineering, rail technology, sustainable chemistry research and one of Europe's busiest air freight hubs. |
| What's missing · UKIZ interpretation | Design demand. Fabrication capability needs a pipeline of UK customers designing products that use it, and capital patient enough for semiconductor timelines. | Downstream value. Satellites are manufactured here while much of the data and applications value is captured elsewhere. Scale-up finance for hardware is limited. | Diversification of the supply chain beyond a small number of large primes, and company formation from a strong engineering research base. |
| What could connect · UKIZ interpretation | South Wales fabrication connected to Bristol and Cambridge chip design and to defence, automotive and energy customers who currently source overseas. | Glasgow manufacture connected to Cornwall launch and Earth observation, Harwell space applications and domestic data customers, forming one national space chain instead of four regional ones. | Propulsion and nuclear engineering connected to Sheffield manufacturing research and Midlands electrification. One Midlands industrial mission rather than three sectors. |
| UKIZ relevance | Compound semiconductors are a genuine national specialism with a fragile ownership base. The proposed Wales mission focuses on keeping the value chain here. | Manufacture, launch and data are three different geographies in Britain. The proposed Scotland mission connects them deliberately. | Propulsion and nuclear capability sit alongside the Midlands mobility mission. The proposed Midlands zone connects them. |
| Last verified | 15 August 2026 | 15 August 2026 | 15 August 2026 |
Proposed by UKIZ · independent · not a government designation