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	Norwich & the EastEast of England	Nottingham & DerbyEast Midlands
Sectors	Space, Semiconductors, Quantum Technologies, Advanced Manufacturing Supporting: Clean Energy, Digital Technologies, Robotics & Autonomous Systems	AgriTech & FoodTech, Engineering Biology, Clean Energy Supporting: Life Sciences, Digital Technologies	Advanced Manufacturing, Clean Energy, Mobility & Transport Technology Supporting: Advanced Materials, Digital Technologies, AgriTech & FoodTech
Research	University of Glasgow University of Strathclyde	University of East Anglia John Innes Centre Quadram Institute	University of Nottingham
Companies	Glasgow small satellite manufacturing cluster	Not recorded on the map.	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. Plant and food research institutes, genomics facilities and offshore energy operations bases.	Not recorded on the map. Propulsion and nuclear engineering facilities, rail test capability and chemistry research centres.
Capital	Public co-investment and specialist funds; hardware scale-up capital is scarce.	Research council and charitable funding dominate; venture capital is scarce.	Corporate and supply chain finance; limited venture activity.
Government programmes	No place-based designation recorded.	Freeport East — Freeports	East Midlands Investment Zone — Investment Zones East Midlands Freeport — 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.	Plant, food and genomics research of international standing, offshore energy operations and maintenance, and a significant agricultural production base on the doorstep.	Aerospace propulsion and small modular reactor engineering, rail technology, sustainable chemistry research and one of Europe's busiest air freight hubs.
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.	Commercial translation of agri-food science, and connection between offshore energy operations and the research base inland.	Diversification of the supply chain beyond a small number of large primes, and company formation from a strong engineering research base.
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.	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.	Propulsion and nuclear engineering connected to Sheffield manufacturing research and Midlands electrification — one Midlands industrial mission rather than three sectors.
UKIZ relevance	Manufacture, launch and data are three different geographies in Britain. The proposed Scotland mission connects them deliberately.	Food security and biotechnology intersect here more clearly than anywhere else in Britain, and connect to the proposed Oxford–Cambridge mission.	Propulsion and nuclear capability sit alongside the Midlands mobility mission. The proposed Midlands zone connects them.
Last verified	15 August 2026	15 August 2026	15 August 2026

Proposed by UKIZ · independent · not a government designation

Back to the map →Methodology →