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 | Southampton & PortsmouthSouth East | Teesside & the HumberNorth East / Yorkshire and the Humber |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sectors | Semiconductors, Advanced Materials, Creative Industries Supporting: Clean Energy, Advanced Manufacturing, Digital Technologies | Defence & Security, Robotics & Autonomous Systems, Advanced Manufacturing Supporting: Clean Energy, Digital Technologies, Advanced Materials | Clean Energy, Advanced Manufacturing, Advanced Materials Supporting: Digital Technologies, AgriTech & FoodTech |
| Research |
|
| Not recorded on the map. |
| Companies |
| Not recorded on the map. | Not recorded on the map. |
| Infrastructure | Not recorded on the map. Compound semiconductor fabrication and research facilities, materials and coatings research, production studios. | Not recorded on the map. Naval and maritime engineering facilities, photonics research centres and port infrastructure. |
Process innovation and biologics scale-up facilities, port capacity and grid-connected industrial land. |
| Capital | Public and corporate capital dominate; venture funding is limited by capital intensity. | Prime contractor supply chain finance and public programmes rather than venture capital. | Infrastructure capital, corporate investment and public programmes; almost no local venture base. |
| Government programmes |
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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. | Maritime, naval and defence engineering, marine autonomy, photonics research and a major port and logistics complex. | The largest concentration of industrial decarbonisation activity in the UK: hydrogen, carbon capture, process manufacturing, biologics scale-up capability and two Freeports with substantial serviced industrial land. |
| 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. | Routes for smaller innovators into defence and maritime procurement, and a civil market for capability developed for defence customers. | Skills pipelines and company formation. The land, power and permits exist; the innovation companies and the technical workforce to fill them do not yet exist at the same scale. |
| 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. | Marine autonomy and photonics connected to Plymouth marine capability, Bristol robotics and offshore energy operations: the same technologies serving defence, energy and shipping. | Industrial land and process scale-up capability connected to research clusters elsewhere that have technologies without a place to build them: a national scale-up site rather than a regional one. |
| 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. | Marine autonomy is where defence, robotics and clean energy meet. The proposed Cornwall & Devon marine mission connects to this capability directly. | This is where Britain either builds an energy supply chain or imports one. The proposed Teesside & Humber mission is explicitly about retained industrial capability. |
| Last verified | 15 August 2026 | 15 August 2026 | 15 August 2026 |
Proposed by UKIZ · independent · not a government designation