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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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Dimension	Birmingham & the West MidlandsWest Midlands	Southampton & PortsmouthSouth East	Liverpool City RegionNorth West
Sectors	Mobility & Transport Technology, Advanced Manufacturing, Quantum Technologies, Advanced Materials Supporting: Clean Energy, Digital Technologies, Defence & Security	Defence & Security, Robotics & Autonomous Systems, Advanced Manufacturing Supporting: Clean Energy, Digital Technologies, Advanced Materials	Life Sciences, Engineering Biology, Advanced Materials Supporting: Digital Technologies, Clean Energy, Creative Industries
Research	University of Birmingham University of Warwick WMG	University of Southampton National Oceanography Centre	University of Liverpool Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine
Companies	Not recorded on the map.	Not recorded on the map.	Not recorded on the map.
Infrastructure	Energy Systems Catapult UK Battery Industrialisation Centre Automotive research centres, battery and vehicle test facilities and major logistics assets.	Not recorded on the map. Naval and maritime engineering facilities, photonics research centres and port infrastructure.	Not recorded on the map. University research institutes, automated chemistry facilities and port and logistics assets.
Capital	Corporate and supply chain finance dominate; venture capital is thin relative to industrial output.	Prime contractor supply chain finance and public programmes rather than venture capital.	A modest local investor base; public and charitable research funding dominate.
Government programmes	West Midlands Investment Zone — Investment Zones	Solent Freeport — Freeports	Liverpool City Region Freeport — Freeports
What exists	The largest manufacturing base in the UK by employment, automotive and electrification engineering, rail and mobility research, and a young, large working-age population.	Maritime, naval and defence engineering, marine autonomy, photonics research and a major port and logistics complex.	Infection and tropical medicine research of international standing, materials chemistry and automated discovery, a large port and a Freeport designation.
What's missing · UKIZ interpretation	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.	Routes for smaller innovators into defence and maritime procurement, and a civil market for capability developed for defence customers.	Translation capacity: strong discovery science with limited local scale-up manufacturing and limited early-stage capital to hold companies in the city region.
What could connect · UKIZ interpretation	Midlands manufacturing paired with battery and power electronics research, North East battery production and Coventry testing capability as a single electrification value chain.	Marine autonomy and photonics connected to Plymouth marine capability, Bristol robotics and offshore energy operations — the same technologies serving defence, energy and shipping.	Infection and biologics research connected to North West and Teesside biomanufacturing capacity, with the port used for export rather than only import.
UKIZ relevance	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.	Marine autonomy is where defence, robotics and clean energy meet. The proposed Cornwall & Devon marine mission connects to this capability directly.	Discovery and manufacture sit unusually close together here. The proposed Manchester mission treats the North West as one health and biomanufacturing geography.
Last verified	15 August 2026	15 August 2026	15 August 2026

Proposed by UKIZ · independent · not a government designation

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