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 | ManchesterNorth West | EdinburghScotland |
|---|---|---|
| Sectors | Advanced Materials, Life Sciences, Digital Technologies, Creative Industries Supporting: Artificial Intelligence, Advanced Manufacturing, Financial Technology, Engineering Biology | Artificial Intelligence, Financial Technology, Robotics & Autonomous Systems, Digital Technologies Supporting: Engineering Biology, Life Sciences, Quantum Technologies, Creative Industries |
| Research |
|
|
| Companies | Not recorded on the map. |
|
| Infrastructure |
National materials and graphene facilities, teaching hospitals and clinical research capability, and a major broadcast production estate. |
Informatics research facilities, robotics commercialisation facilities and supercomputing capability. |
| Capital | A growing regional investor base and northern funds, with growth rounds usually led from London. | Large institutional asset management presence; venture activity is smaller than the capital base implies. |
| Government programmes | No place-based designation recorded. | No place-based designation recorded. |
| What exists | Advanced materials research including graphene and 2D materials, a large health innovation base built on hospitals and universities, a substantial digital and cyber economy, and the biggest broadcast and creative cluster outside London. | 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 | The step from materials discovery to volume production, and a growth capital base proportionate to the research output. Health data at population scale is under-used by industry. | 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 | Materials research connected to Sheffield and Midlands manufacturing, and health innovation connected to Leeds health data capability: a corridor rather than three separate cities. | Scottish institutional capital connected to Scottish deep tech, and Edinburgh AI and robotics capability connected to Glasgow manufacturing and satellite production. |
| UKIZ relevance | Manchester has scale in four different economies that rarely commission from each other. The relevant missions concentrate on connecting health, materials, digital and creative capability. | 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 |
Proposed by UKIZ · independent · not a government designation