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 | Sheffield & RotherhamYorkshire and the Humber | BelfastNorthern Ireland |
|---|---|---|
| Sectors | Advanced Manufacturing, Advanced Materials Supporting: Clean Energy, Robotics & Autonomous Systems, Mobility & Transport Technology, Digital Technologies | Defence & Security, Advanced Materials, Financial Technology, Creative Industries Supporting: Digital Technologies, AgriTech & FoodTech, Advanced Manufacturing |
| Research |
|
|
| Companies | Not recorded on the map. |
|
| Infrastructure |
High Value Manufacturing Catapult centres, nuclear manufacturing facilities and industrial research factories. | Not recorded on the map. Cyber security innovation centre, composites and aerostructures manufacturing and agri-food research facilities. |
| Capital | Public co-investment, corporate partnership and asset finance rather than venture capital. | A small local venture base supported by public co-investment; growth capital typically comes from Dublin, London or the US. |
| Government programmes | No place-based designation recorded. | No place-based designation recorded. |
| What exists | One of the strongest applied manufacturing research bases in Europe, covering machining, materials, nuclear manufacturing and factory-scale process development, working directly with industrial customers. | Cyber security research and commercialisation of international standing, aerospace and composites manufacturing, agri-food research and a fast-growing software sector. |
| What's missing · UKIZ interpretation | Domestic demand. Process capability of international standard is often demonstrated for overseas primes, and local SMEs lack the capital to adopt what is proven a mile away. | Scale-up capital and market access. Companies reach a ceiling and are acquired, and dual-market access advantages are under-exploited commercially. |
| What could connect · UKIZ interpretation | Applied manufacturing research connected to domestic customers, energy, defence, mobility and medical technology, with procurement used as the connector rather than grants. | Belfast cyber capability connected to UK defence and financial services demand, and composites manufacturing connected to Bristol and Midlands aerospace supply chains. |
| UKIZ relevance | The research holds international standing; the domestic customer base for what it produces is thinner than it should be. The proposed Midlands and Teesside & Humber missions both depend on this capability. | Northern Ireland's position between two markets is a commercial asset that is under-used. The proposed Northern Ireland mission treats it as the organising advantage. |
| Last verified | 15 August 2026 | 15 August 2026 |
Proposed by UKIZ · independent · not a government designation