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 | Liverpool City RegionNorth West | Southampton & PortsmouthSouth East | EdinburghScotland |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sectors | Life Sciences, Engineering Biology, Advanced Materials Supporting: Digital Technologies, Clean Energy, Creative Industries | Defence & Security, Robotics & Autonomous Systems, Advanced Manufacturing Supporting: Clean Energy, Digital Technologies, Advanced Materials | Artificial Intelligence, Financial Technology, Robotics & Autonomous Systems, Digital Technologies Supporting: Engineering Biology, Life Sciences, Quantum Technologies, Creative Industries |
| Research |
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| Companies | Not recorded on the map. | Not recorded on the map. |
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| Infrastructure | Not recorded on the map. University research institutes, automated chemistry facilities and port and logistics assets. | Not recorded on the map. Naval and maritime engineering facilities, photonics research centres and port infrastructure. |
Informatics research facilities, robotics commercialisation facilities and supercomputing capability. |
| Capital | A modest local investor base; public and charitable research funding dominate. | Prime contractor supply chain finance and public programmes rather than venture capital. | Large institutional asset management presence; venture activity is smaller than the capital base implies. |
| Government programmes |
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| No place-based designation recorded. |
| What exists | Infection and tropical medicine research of international standing, materials chemistry and automated discovery, a large port and a Freeport designation. | Maritime, naval and defence engineering, marine autonomy, photonics research and a major port and logistics complex. | One of Europe's largest informatics research bases, robotics and autonomous systems commercialisation capability, and a substantial asset management, banking and financial technology sector. |
| What's missing · UKIZ interpretation | Translation capacity: strong discovery science with limited local scale-up manufacturing and limited early-stage capital to hold companies in the city region. | Routes for smaller innovators into defence and maritime procurement, and a civil market for capability developed for defence customers. | 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. |
| What could connect · UKIZ interpretation | Infection and biologics research connected to North West and Teesside biomanufacturing capacity, with the port used for export rather than only import. | Marine autonomy and photonics connected to Plymouth marine capability, Bristol robotics and offshore energy operations: the same technologies serving defence, energy and shipping. | Scottish institutional capital connected to Scottish deep tech, and Edinburgh AI and robotics capability connected to Glasgow manufacturing and satellite production. |
| UKIZ relevance | 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. | Marine autonomy is where defence, robotics and clean energy meet. The proposed Cornwall & Devon marine mission connects to this capability directly. | Scotland's research strength is not in question; its scale-up retention is. The proposed Scotland mission focuses on the capital and customer layer. |
| Last verified | 15 August 2026 | 15 August 2026 | 15 August 2026 |
Proposed by UKIZ · independent · not a government designation