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 | Cardiff & South WalesWales | EdinburghScotland | Cornwall & PlymouthSouth West |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sectors | Semiconductors, Advanced Materials, Creative Industries Supporting: Clean Energy, Advanced Manufacturing, Digital Technologies | Artificial Intelligence, Financial Technology, Robotics & Autonomous Systems, Digital Technologies Supporting: Engineering Biology, Life Sciences, Quantum Technologies, Creative Industries | Space, Clean Energy, Robotics & Autonomous Systems Supporting: Advanced Materials, AgriTech & FoodTech, Digital Technologies |
| Research |
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| Companies |
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| Not recorded on the map. |
| Infrastructure | Not recorded on the map. Compound semiconductor fabrication and research facilities, materials and coatings research, production studios. |
Informatics research facilities, robotics commercialisation facilities and supercomputing capability. |
Aerodrome and space capability, marine research and test facilities and naval infrastructure. |
| Capital | Public and corporate capital dominate; venture funding is limited by capital intensity. | Large institutional asset management presence; venture activity is smaller than the capital base implies. | 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 UK's compound semiconductor cluster, combining research, fabrication and supply chain, alongside steel and coatings materials research, and a significant screen production economy. | One of Europe's largest informatics research bases, robotics and autonomous systems commercialisation capability, and a substantial asset management, banking and financial technology sector. | 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 | Design demand. Fabrication capability needs a pipeline of UK customers designing products that use it, and capital patient enough for semiconductor timelines. | A connection between the capital sitting in Edinburgh's financial institutions and the technology being created a mile away; and later-stage funding to stop companies relocating south. | Company density and connectivity. Excellent facilities sit a long way from capital, customers and complementary suppliers, and skilled people are hard to retain. |
| What could connect · UKIZ interpretation | South Wales fabrication connected to Bristol and Cambridge chip design and to defence, automotive and energy customers who currently source overseas. | Scottish institutional capital connected to Scottish deep tech, and Edinburgh AI and robotics capability connected to Glasgow manufacturing and satellite production. | 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 | Compound semiconductors are a genuine national specialism with a fragile ownership base. The proposed Wales mission focuses on keeping the value chain here. | Scotland's research strength is not in question; its scale-up retention is. The proposed Scotland mission focuses on the capital and customer layer. | 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