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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	Teesside & the HumberNorth East / Yorkshire and the Humber	Cornwall & PlymouthSouth West
Sectors	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	Space, Clean Energy, Robotics & Autonomous Systems Supporting: Advanced Materials, AgriTech & FoodTech, Digital Technologies
Research	University of Southampton National Oceanography Centre	Not recorded on the map.	University of Plymouth Plymouth Marine 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.	Centre for Process Innovation Process innovation and biologics scale-up facilities, port capacity and grid-connected industrial land.	Space and Earth observation capability, Cornwall Aerodrome and space capability, marine research and test facilities and naval infrastructure.
Capital	Prime contractor supply chain finance and public programmes rather than venture capital.	Infrastructure capital, corporate investment and public programmes; almost no local venture base.	Public programmes and a small local investor base; almost all growth capital is external.
Government programmes	Solent Freeport — Freeports	Teesside Freeport — Freeports Humber 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.	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.	Space launch and Earth observation capability, marine autonomy and ocean research, and a distinctive combination of coastline, test space and specialist facilities.
What's missing · UKIZ interpretation	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.	Company density and connectivity. Excellent facilities sit a long way from capital, customers and complementary suppliers, and skilled people are hard to retain.
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.	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.	Launch and Earth observation connected to Glasgow satellite manufacture and Harwell applications, and marine autonomy connected to Solent defence and offshore energy demand.
UKIZ relevance	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.	The proposed Cornwall & Devon mission treats the sea and the satellite economy as one system rather than two separate sectors.
Last verified	15 August 2026	15 August 2026	15 August 2026

Proposed by UKIZ · independent · not a government designation

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