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 | Teesside & the HumberNorth East / Yorkshire and the Humber | Cornwall & PlymouthSouth West |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sectors | Life Sciences, Engineering Biology, Advanced Materials Supporting: Digital Technologies, Clean Energy, Creative Industries | Clean Energy, Advanced Manufacturing, Advanced Materials Supporting: Digital Technologies, AgriTech & FoodTech | Space, Clean Energy, Robotics & Autonomous Systems Supporting: Advanced Materials, AgriTech & FoodTech, Digital Technologies |
| Research |
| Not recorded on the map. |
|
| Companies | Not recorded on the map. | Not recorded on the map. | Not recorded on the map. |
| Infrastructure | Not recorded on the map. University research institutes, automated chemistry facilities and port and logistics assets. |
Process innovation and biologics scale-up facilities, port capacity and grid-connected industrial land. |
Aerodrome and space capability, marine research and test facilities and naval infrastructure. |
| Capital | A modest local investor base; public and charitable research funding dominate. | Infrastructure capital, corporate investment and public programmes; almost no local venture base. | Public programmes and a small local investor base; almost all growth capital is external. |
| Government programmes |
|
| 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. | 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. | Space launch and Earth observation capability, marine autonomy and ocean research, and a distinctive combination of coastline, test space and specialist facilities. |
| 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. | 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. | Company density and connectivity. Excellent facilities are not always well connected to capital, customers and complementary suppliers elsewhere in Britain, and skilled people are difficult to retain. |
| 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. | 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. | Launch and Earth observation connected to Glasgow satellite manufacture and Harwell applications, and marine autonomy connected to Solent defence and offshore energy demand. |
| 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. | This is where Britain either builds an energy supply chain or imports one. The proposed Teesside & Humber mission is explicitly about retained industrial capability. | The proposed Cornwall & Devon mission treats the sea and the satellite economy as one system rather than two separate sectors. |
| Last verified | 15 August 2026 | 15 August 2026 | 15 August 2026 |
Proposed by UKIZ · independent · not a government designation