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	Nottingham & DerbyEast Midlands	Southampton & PortsmouthSouth East	Teesside & the HumberNorth East / Yorkshire and the Humber
Sectors	Advanced Manufacturing, Clean Energy, Mobility & Transport Technology Supporting: Advanced Materials, Digital Technologies, AgriTech & FoodTech	Defence & Security, Robotics & Autonomous Systems, Advanced Manufacturing Supporting: Clean Energy, Digital Technologies, Advanced Materials	Clean Energy, Advanced Manufacturing, Advanced Materials Supporting: Digital Technologies, AgriTech & FoodTech
Research	University of Nottingham	University of Southampton National Oceanography Centre	Not recorded on the map.
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.	Not recorded on the map. Naval and maritime engineering facilities, photonics research centres and port infrastructure.	Centre for Process Innovation Process innovation and biologics scale-up facilities, port capacity and grid-connected industrial land.
Capital	Corporate and supply chain finance; limited venture activity.	Prime contractor supply chain finance and public programmes rather than venture capital.	Infrastructure capital, corporate investment and public programmes; almost no local venture base.
Government programmes	East Midlands Investment Zone — Investment Zones East Midlands Freeport — Freeports	Solent Freeport — Freeports	Teesside Freeport — Freeports Humber Freeport — Freeports
What exists	Aerospace propulsion and small modular reactor engineering, rail technology, sustainable chemistry research and one of Europe's busiest air freight hubs.	Maritime, naval and defence engineering, marine autonomy, photonics research and a major port and logistics complex.	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	Diversification of the supply chain beyond a small number of large primes, and company formation from a strong engineering research base.	Routes for smaller innovators into defence and maritime procurement, and a civil market for capability developed for defence customers.	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	Propulsion and nuclear engineering connected to Sheffield manufacturing research and Midlands electrification — one Midlands industrial mission rather than three sectors.	Marine autonomy and photonics connected to Plymouth marine capability, Bristol robotics and offshore energy operations — the same technologies serving defence, energy and shipping.	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	Propulsion and nuclear capability sit alongside the Midlands mobility mission. The proposed Midlands zone connects them.	Marine autonomy is where defence, robotics and clean energy meet. The proposed Cornwall & Devon marine mission connects to this capability directly.	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

Back to the map →Methodology →