Compare places
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 | BelfastNorthern Ireland | Teesside & the HumberNorth East / Yorkshire and the Humber | Leeds & West YorkshireYorkshire and the Humber |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sectors | Defence & Security, Advanced Materials, Financial Technology, Creative Industries Supporting: Digital Technologies, AgriTech & FoodTech, Advanced Manufacturing | Clean Energy, Advanced Manufacturing, Advanced Materials Supporting: Digital Technologies, AgriTech & FoodTech | Life Sciences, Digital Technologies, Financial Technology Supporting: Artificial Intelligence, Advanced Manufacturing, Creative Industries |
| Research |
| Not recorded on the map. |
|
| Companies |
| Not recorded on the map. |
|
| Infrastructure | Not recorded on the map. Cyber security innovation centre, composites and aerostructures manufacturing and agri-food research facilities. |
Process innovation and biologics scale-up facilities, port capacity and grid-connected industrial land. | Not recorded on the map. Health data infrastructure, teaching hospitals and university research facilities. |
| Capital | A small local venture base supported by public co-investment; growth capital typically comes from Dublin, London or the US. | Infrastructure capital, corporate investment and public programmes; almost no local venture base. | Financial services depth locally, but early-stage health technology capital remains limited. |
| Government programmes | No place-based designation recorded. |
| No place-based designation recorded. |
| 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 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. | National health data organisations, medical technology, a large financial and professional services base and a research university with data and materials strength. |
| 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. | 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. | A clear route for companies to work with health data at scale, and clinical adoption pathways that move faster than pilot projects. |
| 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. | 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. | Leeds health data capability connected to Manchester clinical research and to medical technology manufacturing, giving companies discovery, evidence and production in one region. |
| 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. | This is where Britain either builds an energy supply chain or imports one. The proposed Teesside & Humber mission is explicitly about retained industrial capability. | Health data at population scale is a national asset. The proposed Manchester mission and Leeds capability are complementary rather than competing. |
| Last verified | 15 August 2026 | 15 August 2026 | 15 August 2026 |
Proposed by UKIZ · independent · not a government designation