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	OxfordSouth East	Nottingham & DerbyEast Midlands	Glasgow & the Central BeltScotland
Sectors	Quantum Technologies, Life Sciences, Space, Artificial Intelligence Supporting: Clean Energy, Advanced Materials, Engineering Biology	Advanced Manufacturing, Clean Energy, Mobility & Transport Technology Supporting: Advanced Materials, Digital Technologies, AgriTech & FoodTech	Space, Semiconductors, Quantum Technologies, Advanced Manufacturing Supporting: Clean Energy, Digital Technologies, Robotics & Autonomous Systems
Research	University of Oxford Rutherford Appleton Laboratory	University of Nottingham	University of Glasgow University of Strathclyde
Companies	Not recorded on the map.	Not recorded on the map.	Glasgow small satellite manufacturing cluster
Infrastructure	Harwell Science and Innovation Campus Diamond Light Source Satellite Applications Catapult National laboratory campus facilities, quantum fabrication and metrology capability, and clinical research infrastructure.	Not recorded on the map. Propulsion and nuclear engineering facilities, rail test capability and chemistry research centres.	National Manufacturing Institute Scotland Satellite manufacturing capacity, nanofabrication cleanrooms and national manufacturing research facilities.
Capital	University-linked funds and specialist deep tech investors, with London capital an hour away.	Corporate and supply chain finance; limited venture activity.	Public co-investment and specialist funds; hardware scale-up capital is scarce.
Government programmes	No place-based designation recorded.	East Midlands Investment Zone — Investment Zones East Midlands Freeport — Freeports	No place-based designation recorded.
What exists	A research-intensive university alongside the Harwell campus, one of the largest concentrations of national scientific infrastructure in Britain, spanning space, energy, health and physical sciences, with distinctive quantum, vaccine and space applications strength.	Aerospace propulsion and small modular reactor engineering, rail technology, sustainable chemistry research and one of Europe's busiest air freight hubs.	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.
What's missing · UKIZ interpretation	Access. National facilities are heavily used by their own communities; companies without an existing university relationship find the route in unclear. Scale-up space and later-stage capital are also constrained.	Diversification of the supply chain beyond a small number of large primes, and company formation from a strong engineering research base.	Downstream value. Satellites are manufactured here while much of the data and applications value is captured elsewhere. Scale-up finance for hardware is limited.
What could connect · UKIZ interpretation	Opening national facility access to companies across Britain as shared ecosystem infrastructure, and pairing Oxford quantum and space capability with manufacturing clusters that could produce at volume.	Propulsion and nuclear engineering connected to Sheffield manufacturing research and Midlands electrification — one Midlands industrial mission rather than three sectors.	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.
UKIZ relevance	Oxford has infrastructure most countries cannot build. The proposed zone focuses on making that infrastructure accessible to companies that are not spin-outs of the university.	Propulsion and nuclear capability sit alongside the Midlands mobility mission. The proposed Midlands zone connects them.	Manufacture, launch and data are three different geographies in Britain. The proposed Scotland mission connects them deliberately.
Last verified	15 August 2026	15 August 2026	15 August 2026

Proposed by UKIZ · independent · not a government designation

Back to the map →Methodology →