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 | Newcastle & the North EastNorth East | Cardiff & South WalesWales |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sectors | Artificial Intelligence, Financial Technology, Robotics & Autonomous Systems, Digital Technologies Supporting: Engineering Biology, Life Sciences, Quantum Technologies, Creative Industries | Clean Energy, Mobility & Transport Technology, Advanced Manufacturing Supporting: Life Sciences, Digital Technologies, Robotics & Autonomous Systems | Semiconductors, Advanced Materials, Creative Industries Supporting: Clean Energy, Advanced Manufacturing, Digital Technologies |
| Research |
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| Companies |
| Not recorded on the map. |
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| Infrastructure |
Informatics research facilities, robotics commercialisation facilities and supercomputing capability. |
Offshore renewable test facilities, battery production investment and university research centres. | Not recorded on the map. Compound semiconductor fabrication and research facilities, materials and coatings research, production studios. |
| Capital | Large institutional asset management presence; venture activity is smaller than the capital base implies. | Infrastructure and development finance, with limited venture capital relative to industrial scale. | Public and corporate capital dominate; venture funding is limited by capital intensity. |
| Government programmes | 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. | Offshore renewable energy testing at national scale, battery and electrification investment, ageing and life sciences research and a strong engineering base. | The UK's compound semiconductor cluster, combining research, fabrication and supply chain, alongside steel and coatings materials research, and a significant screen production economy. |
| 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. | Supply chain retention. Britain builds offshore capacity while importing much of the equipment; local firms often serve as installers rather than manufacturers. | Design demand. Fabrication capability needs a pipeline of UK customers designing products that use it, and capital patient enough for semiconductor timelines. |
| 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. | Offshore testing capability connected to Teesside and Humber industrial land, Sheffield manufacturing research and domestic energy buyers. That is an energy supply chain rather than an energy market. | South Wales fabrication connected to Bristol and Cambridge chip design and to defence, automotive and energy customers who currently source overseas. |
| 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. | The region has the industrial land, the ports and the skills base. The proposed North East mission focuses on retaining the supply chain, not only the assembly. | Compound semiconductors are a genuine national specialism with a fragile ownership base. The proposed Wales mission focuses on keeping the value chain here. |
| Last verified | 15 August 2026 | 15 August 2026 | 15 August 2026 |
Proposed by UKIZ · independent · not a government designation