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 | Nottingham & DerbyEast Midlands | Liverpool City RegionNorth West |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sectors | Artificial Intelligence, Financial Technology, Robotics & Autonomous Systems, Digital Technologies Supporting: Engineering Biology, Life Sciences, Quantum Technologies, Creative Industries | Advanced Manufacturing, Clean Energy, Mobility & Transport Technology Supporting: Advanced Materials, Digital Technologies, AgriTech & FoodTech | Life Sciences, Engineering Biology, Advanced Materials Supporting: Digital Technologies, Clean Energy, Creative Industries |
| Research |
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| Companies |
| Not recorded on the map. | Not recorded on the map. |
| Infrastructure |
Informatics research facilities, robotics commercialisation facilities and supercomputing capability. | Not recorded on the map. Propulsion and nuclear engineering facilities, rail test capability and chemistry research centres. | Not recorded on the map. University research institutes, automated chemistry facilities and port and logistics assets. |
| Capital | Large institutional asset management presence; venture activity is smaller than the capital base implies. | Corporate and supply chain finance; limited venture activity. | A modest local investor base; public and charitable research funding dominate. |
| 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. | Aerospace propulsion and small modular reactor engineering, rail technology, sustainable chemistry research and one of Europe's busiest air freight hubs. | Infection and tropical medicine research of international standing, materials chemistry and automated discovery, a large port and a Freeport designation. |
| 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. | Diversification of the supply chain beyond a small number of large primes, and company formation from a strong engineering research base. | Translation capacity: strong discovery science with limited local scale-up manufacturing and limited early-stage capital to hold companies in the city region. |
| 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. | Propulsion and nuclear engineering connected to Sheffield manufacturing research and Midlands electrification. One Midlands industrial mission rather than three sectors. | Infection and biologics research connected to North West and Teesside biomanufacturing capacity, with the port used for export rather than only import. |
| 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. | Propulsion and nuclear capability sit alongside the Midlands mobility mission. The proposed Midlands zone connects them. | Discovery and manufacture here are unusually well connected, with scale-up routes that are already in use. The proposed Manchester mission treats the North West as one health and biomanufacturing geography. |
| Last verified | 15 August 2026 | 15 August 2026 | 15 August 2026 |
Proposed by UKIZ · independent · not a government designation