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 | EdinburghScotland | Glasgow & the Central BeltScotland | Nottingham & DerbyEast Midlands |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sectors | Artificial Intelligence, Financial Technology, Robotics & Autonomous Systems, Digital Technologies Supporting: Engineering Biology, Life Sciences, Quantum Technologies, Creative Industries | 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 |
Informatics research facilities, robotics commercialisation facilities and supercomputing capability. |
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 | Large institutional asset management presence; venture activity is smaller than the capital base implies. | 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. | No place-based designation recorded. |
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| What exists | One of Europe's largest informatics research bases, robotics and autonomous systems commercialisation capability, and a substantial asset management, banking and financial technology sector. | 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 | A connection between the capital sitting in Edinburgh's financial institutions and the technology being created a mile away; and later-stage funding to stop companies relocating south. | 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 | Scottish institutional capital connected to Scottish deep tech, and Edinburgh AI and robotics capability connected to Glasgow manufacturing and satellite production. | 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 | Scotland's research strength is not in question; its scale-up retention is. The proposed Scotland mission focuses on the capital and customer layer. | 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