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	Glasgow & the Central BeltScotland	BelfastNorthern Ireland	Norwich & the EastEast of England
Sectors	Space, Semiconductors, Quantum Technologies, Advanced Manufacturing Supporting: Clean Energy, Digital Technologies, Robotics & Autonomous Systems	Defence & Security, Advanced Materials, Financial Technology, Creative Industries Supporting: Digital Technologies, AgriTech & FoodTech, Advanced Manufacturing	AgriTech & FoodTech, Engineering Biology, Clean Energy Supporting: Life Sciences, Digital Technologies
Research	University of Glasgow University of Strathclyde	Queen's University Belfast Ulster University Centre for Secure Information Technologies	University of East Anglia John Innes Centre Quadram Institute
Companies	Glasgow small satellite manufacturing cluster	Northern Ireland aerospace and composites cluster	Not recorded on the map.
Infrastructure	National Manufacturing Institute Scotland Satellite manufacturing capacity, nanofabrication cleanrooms and national manufacturing research facilities.	Not recorded on the map. Cyber security innovation centre, composites and aerostructures manufacturing and agri-food research facilities.	Not recorded on the map. Plant and food research institutes, genomics facilities and offshore energy operations bases.
Capital	Public co-investment and specialist funds; hardware scale-up capital is scarce.	A small local venture base supported by public co-investment; growth capital typically comes from Dublin, London or the US.	Research council and charitable funding dominate; venture capital is scarce.
Government programmes	No place-based designation recorded.	No place-based designation recorded.	Freeport East — Freeports
What exists	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.	Cyber security research and commercialisation of international standing, aerospace and composites manufacturing, agri-food research and a fast-growing software sector.	Plant, food and genomics research of international standing, offshore energy operations and maintenance, and a significant agricultural production base on the doorstep.
What's missing · UKIZ interpretation	Downstream value. Satellites are manufactured here while much of the data and applications value is captured elsewhere. Scale-up finance for hardware is limited.	Scale-up capital and market access. Companies reach a ceiling and are acquired, and dual-market access advantages are under-exploited commercially.	Commercial translation of agri-food science, and connection between offshore energy operations and the research base inland.
What could connect · UKIZ interpretation	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.	Belfast cyber capability connected to UK defence and financial services demand, and composites manufacturing connected to Bristol and Midlands aerospace supply chains.	Agri-food and genomics research connected to national food manufacturing and to engineering biology capacity, and offshore operations connected to the Humber and North East energy supply chain.
UKIZ relevance	Manufacture, launch and data are three different geographies in Britain. The proposed Scotland mission connects them deliberately.	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.	Food security and biotechnology intersect here more clearly than anywhere else in Britain, and connect to the proposed Oxford–Cambridge mission.
Last verified	15 August 2026	15 August 2026	15 August 2026

Proposed by UKIZ · independent · not a government designation

Back to the map →Methodology →