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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	LondonGreater London	Cornwall & PlymouthSouth West	EdinburghScotland
Sectors	Financial Technology, Artificial Intelligence, Creative Industries, Digital Technologies Supporting: Life Sciences, Quantum Technologies, Engineering Biology, Defence & Security	Space, Clean Energy, Robotics & Autonomous Systems Supporting: Advanced Materials, AgriTech & FoodTech, Digital Technologies	Artificial Intelligence, Financial Technology, Robotics & Autonomous Systems, Digital Technologies Supporting: Engineering Biology, Life Sciences, Quantum Technologies, Creative Industries
Research	Imperial College London University College London King's College London Queen Mary University of London The Alan Turing Institute The Francis Crick Institute	University of Plymouth Plymouth Marine Laboratory	University of Edinburgh Heriot-Watt University
Companies	Not recorded on the map.	Not recorded on the map.	Edinburgh financial services and fintech cluster
Infrastructure	Digital Catapult Connected Places Catapult Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult Level39 University laboratories, teaching hospitals, data centre and compute capacity, and the densest transport network in the country.	Space and Earth observation capability, Cornwall Aerodrome and space capability, marine research and test facilities and naval infrastructure.	National Robotarium Informatics research facilities, robotics commercialisation facilities and supercomputing capability.
Capital	London venture and growth capital ecosystem Venture, growth and public market capital at a scale unmatched elsewhere in Europe, plus corporate venture arms and international investors with UK offices.	Public programmes and a small local investor base; almost all growth capital is external.	Large institutional asset management presence; venture activity is smaller than the capital base implies.
Government programmes	No place-based designation recorded.	No place-based designation recorded.	No place-based designation recorded.
What exists	Four research-intensive universities, the deepest venture and growth capital pool in Europe, financial regulators, the largest concentration of applied AI companies in the UK and a global-scale creative production economy — all within one travel-to-work area.	Space launch and Earth observation capability, marine autonomy and ocean research, and a distinctive combination of coastline, test space and specialist facilities.	One of Europe's largest informatics research bases, robotics and autonomous systems commercialisation capability, and a substantial asset management, banking and financial technology sector.
What's missing · UKIZ interpretation	Circulation. Capital, talent and corporate demand concentrate in London rather than flowing outward, so capability elsewhere in Britain competes for attention with opportunities on the investor's doorstep. Cost also pushes production and scale-up activity out without a route back in.	Company density and connectivity. Excellent facilities sit a long way from capital, customers and complementary suppliers, and skilled people are hard to retain.	A connection between the capital sitting in Edinburgh's financial institutions and the technology being created a mile away; and later-stage funding to stop companies relocating south.
What could connect · UKIZ interpretation	London as the demand and capital node of a national network: investors, corporate buyers and regulators deliberately connected to complementary manufacturing, materials and energy capability in the North, Midlands, Scotland and Wales.	Launch and Earth observation connected to Glasgow satellite manufacture and Harwell applications, and marine autonomy connected to Solent defence and offshore energy demand.	Scottish institutional capital connected to Scottish deep tech, and Edinburgh AI and robotics capability connected to Glasgow manufacturing and satellite production.
UKIZ relevance	London's problem is not capability, it is direction of travel: capital and talent gravitate here rather than circulating. The proposed London zone focuses on using that density to fund and buy from capability elsewhere in Britain.	The proposed Cornwall & Devon mission treats the sea and the satellite economy as one system rather than two separate sectors.	Scotland's research strength is not in question; its scale-up retention is. The proposed Scotland mission focuses on the capital and customer layer.
Last verified	15 August 2026	15 August 2026	15 August 2026

Proposed by UKIZ · independent · not a government designation

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