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	Sheffield & RotherhamYorkshire and the Humber	Birmingham & the West MidlandsWest Midlands
Sectors	Defence & Security, Robotics & Autonomous Systems, Advanced Manufacturing Supporting: Clean Energy, Digital Technologies, Advanced Materials	Advanced Manufacturing, Advanced Materials Supporting: Clean Energy, Robotics & Autonomous Systems, Mobility & Transport Technology, Digital Technologies	Mobility & Transport Technology, Advanced Manufacturing, Quantum Technologies, Advanced Materials Supporting: Clean Energy, Digital Technologies, Defence & Security
Research	University of Southampton National Oceanography Centre	University of Sheffield	University of Birmingham University of Warwick WMG
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.	Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre Nuclear AMRC High Value Manufacturing Catapult centres, nuclear manufacturing facilities and industrial research factories.	Energy Systems Catapult UK Battery Industrialisation Centre Automotive research centres, battery and vehicle test facilities and major logistics assets.
Capital	Prime contractor supply chain finance and public programmes rather than venture capital.	Public co-investment, corporate partnership and asset finance rather than venture capital.	Corporate and supply chain finance dominate; venture capital is thin relative to industrial output.
Government programmes	Solent Freeport — Freeports	No place-based designation recorded.	West Midlands Investment Zone — Investment Zones
What exists	Maritime, naval and defence engineering, marine autonomy, photonics research and a major port and logistics complex.	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 largest manufacturing base in the UK by employment, automotive and electrification engineering, rail and mobility research, and a young, large working-age population.
What's missing · UKIZ interpretation	Routes for smaller innovators into defence and maritime procurement, and a civil market for capability developed for defence customers.	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.	Ownership of the value in electrified vehicles: battery, power electronics and software increasingly sit outside the region and outside the UK. Innovation-active SME supply chains are under-capitalised.
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.	Applied manufacturing research connected to domestic customers — energy, defence, mobility and medical technology — with procurement used as the connector rather than grants.	Midlands manufacturing paired with battery and power electronics research, North East battery production and Coventry testing capability as a single electrification value chain.
UKIZ relevance	Marine autonomy is where defence, robotics and clean energy meet. The proposed Cornwall & Devon marine mission connects to this capability directly.	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.	The region's transition depends on owning the new value in a vehicle rather than assembling someone else's. The proposed Midlands zone focuses on batteries, power electronics and software.
Last verified	15 August 2026	15 August 2026	15 August 2026

Proposed by UKIZ · independent · not a government designation

Back to the map →Methodology →