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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.

Choose up to three clusters

Side by side

Dimension	Newcastle & the North EastNorth East	Teesside & the HumberNorth East / Yorkshire and the Humber	BelfastNorthern Ireland
Sectors	Clean Energy, Mobility & Transport Technology, Advanced Manufacturing Supporting: Life Sciences, Digital Technologies, Robotics & Autonomous Systems	Clean Energy, Advanced Manufacturing, Advanced Materials Supporting: Digital Technologies, AgriTech & FoodTech	Defence & Security, Advanced Materials, Financial Technology, Creative Industries Supporting: Digital Technologies, AgriTech & FoodTech, Advanced Manufacturing
Research	Newcastle University Durham University	Not recorded on the map.	Queen's University Belfast Ulster University Centre for Secure Information Technologies
Companies	Not recorded on the map.	Not recorded on the map.	Northern Ireland aerospace and composites cluster
Infrastructure	Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult Offshore renewable test facilities, battery production investment and university research centres.	Centre for Process Innovation Process innovation and biologics scale-up facilities, port capacity and grid-connected industrial land.	Not recorded on the map. Cyber security innovation centre, composites and aerostructures manufacturing and agri-food research facilities.
Capital	Infrastructure and development finance, with limited venture capital relative to industrial scale.	Infrastructure capital, corporate investment and public programmes; almost no local venture base.	A small local venture base supported by public co-investment; growth capital typically comes from Dublin, London or the US.
Government programmes	North East Investment Zone — Investment Zones	Teesside Freeport — Freeports Humber Freeport — Freeports	No place-based designation recorded.
What exists	Offshore renewable energy testing at national scale, battery and electrification investment, ageing and life sciences research and a strong engineering base.	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.	Cyber security research and commercialisation of international standing, aerospace and composites manufacturing, agri-food research and a fast-growing software sector.
What's missing · UKIZ interpretation	Supply chain retention. Britain builds offshore capacity while importing much of the equipment; local firms often serve as installers rather than manufacturers.	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.	Scale-up capital and market access. Companies reach a ceiling and are acquired, and dual-market access advantages are under-exploited commercially.
What could connect · UKIZ interpretation	Offshore testing capability connected to Teesside and Humber industrial land, Sheffield manufacturing research and domestic energy buyers — an energy supply chain rather than an energy market.	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.	Belfast cyber capability connected to UK defence and financial services demand, and composites manufacturing connected to Bristol and Midlands aerospace supply chains.
UKIZ relevance	The region has the industrial land, the ports and the skills base. The proposed North East mission focuses on retaining the supply chain, not only the assembly.	This is where Britain either builds an energy supply chain or imports one. The proposed Teesside & Humber mission is explicitly about retained industrial capability.	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.
Last verified	15 August 2026	15 August 2026	15 August 2026

Proposed by UKIZ · not a government designation

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