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

Side by side

Dimension	Cardiff & South WalesWales	Glasgow & the Central BeltScotland	Liverpool City RegionNorth West
Sectors	Semiconductors, Advanced Materials, Creative Industries Supporting: Clean Energy, Advanced Manufacturing, Digital Technologies	Space, Semiconductors, Quantum Technologies, Advanced Manufacturing Supporting: Clean Energy, Digital Technologies, Robotics & Autonomous Systems	Life Sciences, Engineering Biology, Advanced Materials Supporting: Digital Technologies, Clean Energy, Creative Industries
Research	Cardiff University Swansea University	University of Glasgow University of Strathclyde	University of Liverpool Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine
Companies	South Wales compound semiconductor cluster	Glasgow small satellite manufacturing cluster	Not recorded on the map.
Infrastructure	Not recorded on the map. Compound semiconductor fabrication and research facilities, materials and coatings research, production studios.	National Manufacturing Institute Scotland Satellite manufacturing capacity, nanofabrication cleanrooms and national manufacturing research facilities.	Not recorded on the map. University research institutes, automated chemistry facilities and port and logistics assets.
Capital	Public and corporate capital dominate; venture funding is limited by capital intensity.	Public co-investment and specialist funds; hardware scale-up capital is scarce.	A modest local investor base; public and charitable research funding dominate.
Government programmes	Wales Investment Zone designations — Investment Zones	No place-based designation recorded.	Liverpool City Region Freeport — Freeports
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.	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.	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	Design demand. Fabrication capability needs a pipeline of UK customers designing products that use it, and capital patient enough for semiconductor timelines.	Downstream value. Satellites are manufactured here while much of the data and applications value is captured elsewhere. Scale-up finance for hardware is limited.	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	South Wales fabrication connected to Bristol and Cambridge chip design and to defence, automotive and energy customers who currently source overseas.	Glasgow manufacture connected to Cornwall launch and Earth observation, Harwell space applications and domestic data customers — one national space chain instead of four regional ones.	Infection and biologics research connected to North West and Teesside biomanufacturing capacity, with the port used for export rather than only import.
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.	Manufacture, launch and data are three different geographies in Britain. The proposed Scotland mission connects them deliberately.	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

Back to the map →Methodology →