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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.

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Side by side

Dimension	Glasgow & the Central BeltScotland	Nottingham & DerbyEast Midlands	Teesside & the HumberNorth East / Yorkshire and the Humber
Sectors	Space, Semiconductors, Quantum Technologies, Advanced Manufacturing Supporting: Clean Energy, Digital Technologies, Robotics & Autonomous Systems	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	University of Glasgow University of Strathclyde	University of Nottingham	Not recorded on the map.
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. Propulsion and nuclear engineering facilities, rail test capability and chemistry research centres.	Centre for Process Innovation Process innovation and biologics scale-up facilities, port capacity and grid-connected industrial land.
Capital	Public co-investment and specialist funds; hardware scale-up capital is scarce.	Corporate and supply chain finance; limited venture activity.	Infrastructure capital, corporate investment and public programmes; almost no local venture base.
Government programmes	No place-based designation recorded.	East Midlands Investment Zone — Investment Zones East Midlands Freeport — Freeports	Teesside Freeport — Freeports Humber 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.	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	Downstream value. Satellites are manufactured here while much of the data and applications value is captured elsewhere. Scale-up finance for hardware is limited.	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	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.	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	Manufacture, launch and data are three different geographies in Britain. The proposed Scotland mission connects them deliberately.	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

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