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	Southampton & PortsmouthSouth East	Nottingham & DerbyEast Midlands	OxfordSouth East
Sectors	Defence & Security, Robotics & Autonomous Systems, Advanced Manufacturing Supporting: Clean Energy, Digital Technologies, Advanced Materials	Advanced Manufacturing, Clean Energy, Mobility & Transport Technology Supporting: Advanced Materials, Digital Technologies, AgriTech & FoodTech	Quantum Technologies, Life Sciences, Space, Artificial Intelligence Supporting: Clean Energy, Advanced Materials, Engineering Biology
Research	University of Southampton National Oceanography Centre	University of Nottingham	University of Oxford Rutherford Appleton Laboratory
Companies	Not recorded on the map.	Not recorded on the map.	Not recorded on the map.
Infrastructure	Not recorded on the map. Naval and maritime engineering facilities, photonics research centres and port infrastructure.	Not recorded on the map. Propulsion and nuclear engineering facilities, rail test capability and chemistry research centres.	Harwell Science and Innovation Campus Diamond Light Source Satellite Applications Catapult National laboratory campus facilities, quantum fabrication and metrology capability, and clinical research infrastructure.
Capital	Prime contractor supply chain finance and public programmes rather than venture capital.	Corporate and supply chain finance; limited venture activity.	University-linked funds and specialist deep tech investors, with London capital an hour away.
Government programmes	Solent Freeport — Freeports	East Midlands Investment Zone — Investment Zones East Midlands Freeport — Freeports	No place-based designation recorded.
What exists	Maritime, naval and defence engineering, marine autonomy, photonics research and a major port and logistics complex.	Aerospace propulsion and small modular reactor engineering, rail technology, sustainable chemistry research and one of Europe's busiest air freight hubs.	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.
What's missing · UKIZ interpretation	Routes for smaller innovators into defence and maritime procurement, and a civil market for capability developed for defence customers.	Diversification of the supply chain beyond a small number of large primes, and company formation from a strong engineering research base.	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.
What could connect · UKIZ interpretation	Marine autonomy and photonics connected to Plymouth marine capability, Bristol robotics and offshore energy operations — the same technologies serving defence, energy and shipping.	Propulsion and nuclear engineering connected to Sheffield manufacturing research and Midlands electrification — one Midlands industrial mission rather than three sectors.	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.
UKIZ relevance	Marine autonomy is where defence, robotics and clean energy meet. The proposed Cornwall & Devon marine mission connects to this capability directly.	Propulsion and nuclear capability sit alongside the Midlands mobility mission. The proposed Midlands zone connects them.	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.
Last verified	15 August 2026	15 August 2026	15 August 2026

Proposed by UKIZ · independent · not a government designation

Back to the map →Methodology →