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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	Nottingham & DerbyEast Midlands	ManchesterNorth West	Norwich & the EastEast of England
Sectors	Advanced Manufacturing, Clean Energy, Mobility & Transport Technology Supporting: Advanced Materials, Digital Technologies, AgriTech & FoodTech	Advanced Materials, Life Sciences, Digital Technologies, Creative Industries Supporting: Artificial Intelligence, Advanced Manufacturing, Financial Technology, Engineering Biology	AgriTech & FoodTech, Engineering Biology, Clean Energy Supporting: Life Sciences, Digital Technologies
Research	University of Nottingham	The University of Manchester Manchester Metropolitan University National Graphene Institute Greater Manchester health innovation partnership	University of East Anglia John Innes Centre Quadram Institute
Companies	Not recorded on the map.	Not recorded on the map.	Not recorded on the map.
Infrastructure	Not recorded on the map. Propulsion and nuclear engineering facilities, rail test capability and chemistry research centres.	MediaCity Advanced manufacturing Catapult capability, North West National materials and graphene facilities, teaching hospitals and clinical research capability, and a major broadcast production estate.	Not recorded on the map. Plant and food research institutes, genomics facilities and offshore energy operations bases.
Capital	Corporate and supply chain finance; limited venture activity.	A growing regional investor base and northern funds, with growth rounds usually led from London.	Research council and charitable funding dominate; venture capital is scarce.
Government programmes	East Midlands Investment Zone — Investment Zones East Midlands Freeport — Freeports	No place-based designation recorded.	Freeport East — Freeports
What exists	Aerospace propulsion and small modular reactor engineering, rail technology, sustainable chemistry research and one of Europe's busiest air freight hubs.	Advanced materials research including graphene and 2D materials, a large health innovation base built on hospitals and universities, a substantial digital and cyber economy, and the biggest broadcast and creative cluster outside London.	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	Diversification of the supply chain beyond a small number of large primes, and company formation from a strong engineering research base.	The step from materials discovery to volume production, and a growth capital base proportionate to the research output. Health data at population scale is under-used by industry.	Commercial translation of agri-food science, and connection between offshore energy operations and the research base inland.
What could connect · UKIZ interpretation	Propulsion and nuclear engineering connected to Sheffield manufacturing research and Midlands electrification — one Midlands industrial mission rather than three sectors.	Materials research connected to Sheffield and Midlands manufacturing, and health innovation connected to Leeds health data capability — a corridor rather than three separate cities.	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	Propulsion and nuclear capability sit alongside the Midlands mobility mission. The proposed Midlands zone connects them.	Manchester has scale in four different economies that rarely commission from each other. The proposed zone concentrates on connecting health, materials, digital and creative capability around shared missions.	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

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