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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.

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Side by side

Dimension	BelfastNorthern Ireland	Birmingham & the West MidlandsWest Midlands	Nottingham & DerbyEast Midlands
Sectors	Defence & Security, Advanced Materials, Financial Technology, Creative Industries Supporting: Digital Technologies, AgriTech & FoodTech, Advanced Manufacturing	Mobility & Transport Technology, Advanced Manufacturing, Quantum Technologies, Advanced Materials Supporting: Clean Energy, Digital Technologies, Defence & Security	Advanced Manufacturing, Clean Energy, Mobility & Transport Technology Supporting: Advanced Materials, Digital Technologies, AgriTech & FoodTech
Research	Queen's University Belfast Ulster University Centre for Secure Information Technologies	University of Birmingham University of Warwick WMG	University of Nottingham
Companies	Northern Ireland aerospace and composites cluster	Not recorded on the map.	Not recorded on the map.
Infrastructure	Not recorded on the map. Cyber security innovation centre, composites and aerostructures manufacturing and agri-food research facilities.	Energy Systems Catapult UK Battery Industrialisation Centre Automotive research centres, battery and vehicle test facilities and major logistics assets.	Not recorded on the map. Propulsion and nuclear engineering facilities, rail test capability and chemistry research centres.
Capital	A small local venture base supported by public co-investment; growth capital typically comes from Dublin, London or the US.	Corporate and supply chain finance dominate; venture capital is thin relative to industrial output.	Corporate and supply chain finance; limited venture activity.
Government programmes	No place-based designation recorded.	West Midlands Investment Zone — Investment Zones	East Midlands Investment Zone — Investment Zones East Midlands Freeport — Freeports
What exists	Cyber security research and commercialisation of international standing, aerospace and composites manufacturing, agri-food research and a fast-growing software sector.	The largest manufacturing base in the UK by employment, automotive and electrification engineering, rail and mobility research, and a young, large working-age population.	Aerospace propulsion and small modular reactor engineering, rail technology, sustainable chemistry research and one of Europe's busiest air freight hubs.
What's missing · UKIZ interpretation	Scale-up capital and market access. Companies reach a ceiling and are acquired, and dual-market access advantages are under-exploited commercially.	Ownership of the value in electrified vehicles: battery, power electronics and software increasingly sit outside the region and outside the UK. Innovation-active SME supply chains are under-capitalised.	Diversification of the supply chain beyond a small number of large primes, and company formation from a strong engineering research base.
What could connect · UKIZ interpretation	Belfast cyber capability connected to UK defence and financial services demand, and composites manufacturing connected to Bristol and Midlands aerospace supply chains.	Midlands manufacturing paired with battery and power electronics research, North East battery production and Coventry testing capability as a single electrification value chain.	Propulsion and nuclear engineering connected to Sheffield manufacturing research and Midlands electrification — one Midlands industrial mission rather than three sectors.
UKIZ relevance	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.	The region's transition depends on owning the new value in a vehicle rather than assembling someone else's. The proposed Midlands zone focuses on batteries, power electronics and software.	Propulsion and nuclear capability sit alongside the Midlands mobility mission. The proposed Midlands zone connects them.
Last verified	15 August 2026	15 August 2026	15 August 2026

Proposed by UKIZ · not a government designation

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