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
- London
- Cambridge
- Oxford
- Manchester
- Birmingham & the West Midlands
- Bristol & Bath
- Sheffield & Rotherham
- Leeds & West Yorkshire
- Liverpool City Region
- Newcastle & the North East
- Teesside & the Humber
- Edinburgh
- Glasgow & the Central Belt
- Belfast
- Cardiff & South Wales
- Southampton & Portsmouth
- Cornwall & Plymouth
- Nottingham & Derby
- Norwich & the East
Side by side
| Dimension | Sheffield & RotherhamYorkshire and the Humber | Cardiff & South WalesWales | Nottingham & DerbyEast Midlands |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sectors | Advanced Manufacturing, Advanced Materials Supporting: Clean Energy, Robotics & Autonomous Systems, Mobility & Transport Technology, Digital Technologies | Semiconductors, Advanced Materials, Creative Industries Supporting: Clean Energy, Advanced Manufacturing, Digital Technologies | Advanced Manufacturing, Clean Energy, Mobility & Transport Technology Supporting: Advanced Materials, Digital Technologies, AgriTech & FoodTech |
| Research |
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| Companies | Not recorded on the map. |
| Not recorded on the map. |
| Infrastructure |
High Value Manufacturing Catapult centres, nuclear manufacturing facilities and industrial research factories. | Not recorded on the map. Compound semiconductor fabrication and research facilities, materials and coatings research, production studios. | Not recorded on the map. Propulsion and nuclear engineering facilities, rail test capability and chemistry research centres. |
| Capital | Public co-investment, corporate partnership and asset finance rather than venture capital. | Public and corporate capital dominate; venture funding is limited by capital intensity. | Corporate and supply chain finance; limited venture activity. |
| Government programmes | No place-based designation recorded. |
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| What exists | One of the strongest applied manufacturing research bases in Europe, covering machining, materials, nuclear manufacturing and factory-scale process development, working directly with industrial customers. | The UK's compound semiconductor cluster, combining research, fabrication and supply chain, alongside steel and coatings materials research, and a significant screen production economy. | Aerospace propulsion and small modular reactor engineering, rail technology, sustainable chemistry research and one of Europe's busiest air freight hubs. |
| What's missing · UKIZ interpretation | Domestic demand. World-class process capability is often demonstrated for overseas primes, and local SMEs lack the capital to adopt what is proven a mile away. | Design demand. Fabrication capability needs a pipeline of UK customers designing products that use it, and capital patient enough for semiconductor timelines. | Diversification of the supply chain beyond a small number of large primes, and company formation from a strong engineering research base. |
| What could connect · UKIZ interpretation | Applied manufacturing research connected to domestic customers — energy, defence, mobility and medical technology — with procurement used as the connector rather than grants. | South Wales fabrication connected to Bristol and Cambridge chip design and to defence, automotive and energy customers who currently source overseas. | Propulsion and nuclear engineering connected to Sheffield manufacturing research and Midlands electrification — one Midlands industrial mission rather than three sectors. |
| UKIZ relevance | The research is world class; the domestic customer base for what it produces is thinner than it should be. The proposed Midlands and Teesside & Humber missions both depend on this capability. | Compound semiconductors are a genuine national specialism with a fragile ownership base. The proposed Wales mission focuses on keeping the value chain here. | Propulsion and nuclear capability sit alongside the Midlands mobility mission. The proposed Midlands zone connects them. |
| Last verified | 15 August 2026 | 15 August 2026 | 15 August 2026 |
Proposed by UKIZ · independent · not a government designation