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 | Teesside & the HumberNorth East / Yorkshire and the Humber | Glasgow & the Central BeltScotland | Cornwall & PlymouthSouth West |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sectors | Clean Energy, Advanced Manufacturing, Advanced Materials Supporting: Digital Technologies, AgriTech & FoodTech | Space, Semiconductors, Quantum Technologies, Advanced Manufacturing Supporting: Clean Energy, Digital Technologies, Robotics & Autonomous Systems | 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. |
| Infrastructure |
Process innovation and biologics scale-up facilities, port capacity and grid-connected industrial land. |
Satellite manufacturing capacity, nanofabrication cleanrooms and national manufacturing research facilities. |
Aerodrome and space capability, marine research and test facilities and naval infrastructure. |
| Capital | Infrastructure capital, corporate investment and public programmes; almost no local venture base. | Public co-investment and specialist funds; hardware scale-up capital is scarce. | Public programmes and a small local investor base; almost all growth capital is external. |
| Government programmes |
| No place-based designation recorded. | No place-based designation recorded. |
| What exists | 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. | More small satellites built here than anywhere else in Europe, quantum imaging and nanofabrication research, and a large applied engineering, manufacturing and energy research base. | 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 | 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. | Downstream value. Satellites are manufactured here while much of the data and applications value is captured elsewhere. Scale-up finance for hardware is limited. | 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 | 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. | Glasgow manufacture connected to Cornwall launch and Earth observation, Harwell space applications and domestic data customers, forming one national space chain instead of four regional ones. | 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 | This is where Britain either builds an energy supply chain or imports one. The proposed Teesside & Humber mission is explicitly about retained industrial capability. | Manufacture, launch and data are three different geographies in Britain. The proposed Scotland mission connects them deliberately. | 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