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

Side by side

Dimension	Cardiff & South WalesWales	Norwich & the EastEast of England	Glasgow & the Central BeltScotland
Sectors	Semiconductors, Advanced Materials, Creative Industries Supporting: Clean Energy, Advanced Manufacturing, Digital Technologies	AgriTech & FoodTech, Engineering Biology, Clean Energy Supporting: Life Sciences, Digital Technologies	Space, Semiconductors, Quantum Technologies, Advanced Manufacturing Supporting: Clean Energy, Digital Technologies, Robotics & Autonomous Systems
Research	Cardiff University Swansea University	University of East Anglia John Innes Centre Quadram Institute	University of Glasgow University of Strathclyde
Companies	South Wales compound semiconductor cluster	Not recorded on the map.	Glasgow small satellite manufacturing cluster
Infrastructure	Not recorded on the map. Compound semiconductor fabrication and research facilities, materials and coatings research, production studios.	Not recorded on the map. Plant and food research institutes, genomics facilities and offshore energy operations bases.	National Manufacturing Institute Scotland Satellite manufacturing capacity, nanofabrication cleanrooms and national manufacturing research facilities.
Capital	Public and corporate capital dominate; venture funding is limited by capital intensity.	Research council and charitable funding dominate; venture capital is scarce.	Public co-investment and specialist funds; hardware scale-up capital is scarce.
Government programmes	Wales Investment Zone designations, Investment Zones	Freeport East, Freeports	No place-based designation recorded.
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.	Plant, food and genomics research of international standing, offshore energy operations and maintenance, and a significant agricultural production base on the doorstep.	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.
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.	Commercial translation of agri-food science, and connection between offshore energy operations and the research base inland.	Downstream value. Satellites are manufactured here while much of the data and applications value is captured elsewhere. Scale-up finance for hardware is limited.
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.	Agri-food and genomics research connected to national food manufacturing and to engineering biology capacity, and offshore operations connected to the Humber and North East energy supply chain.	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.
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.	Food security and biotechnology intersect here more clearly than anywhere else in Britain, and connect to the proposed Oxford-Cambridge mission.	Manufacture, launch and data are three different geographies in Britain. The proposed Scotland mission connects them deliberately.
Last verified	15 August 2026	15 August 2026	15 August 2026

Proposed by UKIZ · independent · not a government designation

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