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 | Nottingham & DerbyEast Midlands | Teesside & the HumberNorth East / Yorkshire and the Humber |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sectors | Semiconductors, Advanced Materials, Creative Industries Supporting: Clean Energy, Advanced Manufacturing, Digital Technologies | Advanced Manufacturing, Clean Energy, Mobility & Transport Technology Supporting: Advanced Materials, Digital Technologies, AgriTech & FoodTech | Clean Energy, Advanced Manufacturing, Advanced Materials Supporting: Digital Technologies, AgriTech & FoodTech |
| Research |
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| Not recorded on the map. |
| Companies |
| Not recorded on the map. | Not recorded on the map. |
| Infrastructure | Not recorded on the map. Compound semiconductor fabrication and research facilities, materials and coatings research, production studios. | Not recorded on the map. Propulsion and nuclear engineering facilities, rail test capability and chemistry research centres. |
Process innovation and biologics scale-up facilities, port capacity and grid-connected industrial land. |
| Capital | Public and corporate capital dominate; venture funding is limited by capital intensity. | Corporate and supply chain finance; limited venture activity. | Infrastructure capital, corporate investment and public programmes; almost no local venture base. |
| Government programmes |
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| 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. | Aerospace propulsion and small modular reactor engineering, rail technology, sustainable chemistry research and one of Europe's busiest air freight hubs. | 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. |
| 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. | Diversification of the supply chain beyond a small number of large primes, and company formation from a strong engineering research base. | 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. |
| 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. | Propulsion and nuclear engineering connected to Sheffield manufacturing research and Midlands electrification — one Midlands industrial mission rather than three sectors. | 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. |
| 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. | Propulsion and nuclear capability sit alongside the Midlands mobility mission. The proposed Midlands zone connects them. | This is where Britain either builds an energy supply chain or imports one. The proposed Teesside & Humber mission is explicitly about retained industrial capability. |
| Last verified | 15 August 2026 | 15 August 2026 | 15 August 2026 |
Proposed by UKIZ · independent · not a government designation