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 | Nottingham & DerbyEast Midlands | Teesside & the HumberNorth East / Yorkshire and the Humber | ManchesterNorth West |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sectors | Advanced Manufacturing, Clean Energy, Mobility & Transport Technology Supporting: Advanced Materials, Digital Technologies, AgriTech & FoodTech | Clean Energy, Advanced Manufacturing, Advanced Materials Supporting: Digital Technologies, AgriTech & FoodTech | Advanced Materials, Life Sciences, Digital Technologies, Creative Industries Supporting: Artificial Intelligence, Advanced Manufacturing, Financial Technology, Engineering Biology |
| 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. Propulsion and nuclear engineering facilities, rail test capability and chemistry research centres. |
Process innovation and biologics scale-up facilities, port capacity and grid-connected industrial land. |
National materials and graphene facilities, teaching hospitals and clinical research capability, and a major broadcast production estate. |
| Capital | Corporate and supply chain finance; limited venture activity. | Infrastructure capital, corporate investment and public programmes; almost no local venture base. | A growing regional investor base and northern funds, with growth rounds usually led from London. |
| Government programmes |
|
| No place-based designation recorded. |
| What exists | Aerospace propulsion and small modular reactor engineering, rail technology, sustainable chemistry research and one of Europe's busiest air freight hubs. | 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. | 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. |
| What's missing · UKIZ interpretation | Diversification of the supply chain beyond a small number of large primes, and company formation from a strong engineering research base. | 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. | 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. |
| What could connect · UKIZ interpretation | Propulsion and nuclear engineering connected to Sheffield manufacturing research and Midlands electrification. One Midlands industrial mission rather than three sectors. | 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. | Materials research connected to Sheffield and Midlands manufacturing, and health innovation connected to Leeds health data capability: a corridor rather than three separate cities. |
| UKIZ relevance | Propulsion and nuclear capability sit alongside the Midlands mobility mission. The proposed Midlands zone connects them. | This is where Britain either builds an energy supply chain or imports one. The proposed Teesside & Humber mission is explicitly about retained industrial capability. | 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. |
| Last verified | 15 August 2026 | 15 August 2026 | 15 August 2026 |
Proposed by UKIZ · independent · not a government designation