Innovative companies

The UK has a strong distribution of innovative companies, with regional centres of excellence or ‘clusters' specialising in everything from Quantum and Semiconductors to Robotics and Photonics. Examples include Harwell Science Campus (where techUK launched our first Emerging Space Tech report) and Leamington Spa (in which techUK held part of its Gaming & Esports sprint campaign activity).

Examples of innovative clusters in the UK

Robotics Members

Airbus, Stevenage - built the rover for the Mars mission.
Starship Technologies - robotics company that provides autonomous delivery services to businesses in various sectors, including food, groceries, and retail across Leeds, Wakefield, Trafford, Milton Keynes, Northampton and Cambourne.
Oxa - Autonomous vehicles such as the first self driving shuttle in Northen Ireland.

Photonics clusters

The UK has a strong network of clusters focused on Photonics technologies.

1. Northern Ireland

Offers specialised capabilities in photonics, with world-class capability in areas such as advanced sensors, key academic and industrial assets and a growing focal point for entrepreneurship in Belfast, enabling cross-sector innovation.
In March 2025 Invest Northern Ireland approved support for the establishment of a photonics Cluster Acceleration Programme to establish a self-sustaining photonics cluster in Northern Ireland which was officially launched on 21st October 2025.
Seagate Technology, a techUK member, with a strategic focus on photonics innovation and commercialisation demonstrates how industry can benefit from clusters, highlighting the Smart Nano programme that demonstrates how photonics clusters can play a role in scaling up SMEs through its 12-week accelerator programme that gives companies the opportunity to connect with industry and to support them conduct further prototyping and testing.

2. Southampton

The “Photonics Valley” in the Southampton area, comprises over 10 photonics manufacturing and design companies, many of which have their with roots in the world renowned Optoelectronics Research Centre, based at the University of Southampton. One of these is CORNERSTONE, a tech UK member offering seven photonics technology platforms to accommodate a broad spectrum of applications, including telecoms, sensing, LiDAR, quantum, and more.
techUK will continue to explore the role of these clusters, examining how industry and government can support them to maximise their impact, as well as providing a more detailed analysis of the UK's photonics cluster landscape in the years ahead. These insights will be featured in techUK's upcoming photonics report, due to be published in the first half of 2026.
techUK's Meet the Innovators video interview and event series regularly showcases how member companies are leading on enabling innovation. Contributors include an immersive content developer in Southam, semiconductor manufacturer in Durham, and data centre company in Harlow.

3. Cambridge

The Cambridge cluster hosts one of the semiconductor sectors biggest assets- our capabilities in chip design and intellectual property. The city's thriving tech ecosystem, valued higher than those of Italy and Spain combined, represents around 18%of the UK's total tech sector and ranks alongside San Jose as one of the world's top innovation hubs. Within this environment, leading firms such as Arm, Agile Analog, Cambridge GaN Devices, and Paragraf drive much of the UK's semiconductor design and IP activity. In 2022, approximately £7.4bn was generated by dedicated UK semiconductor companies; Arm alone generated £3.4bn of this GVA with its specialisation in chip design and IP.
The cluster's success is rooted in deep collaboration between academia and industry. The University of Cambridge generates world-class talent, pioneering research, and high-growth spinouts - half of the city's semiconductor firms trace their origins back to the university. Nearby, major global players including Microsoft, Samsung, and Siemens maintain design sites within a two-mile radius of Arm's headquarters, benefiting from the city's dense concentration of expertise.
techUK continues to champion this innovation ecosystem, connecting industry voices to national strategy. techUK's policy paper- the UK plan for Chips- spotlighted Cambridge as a core UK asset, sitting at the heart of our first mission of doubling down on UK strengths in design and IP.
Building on its work through the Chips Coalition and engagement around the UK Semiconductor Centre, techUK will keep supporting Cambridge's design-led strengths - ensuring the UK remains a global leader in semiconductor innovation.

Percentage of innovative companies by local authority (registered address), digital sector (2025)

3% or more

Source: The Data City
Layout: Local Authority Districts 2023 Open Innovations (MIT)
License: CC BY-SA 4.0

Notes: Innovation intensity refers to the percentage of digital companies that are likely to be innovative.

Percentage of innovative companies by local authority (registered address), all sectors (2025)

15% or more

10%

15% or more

Source: The Data City
Layout: Local Authority Districts 2023 Open Innovations (MIT)
License: CC BY-SA 4.0

Notes: Innovation intensity refers to the percentage of digital companies that are likely to be innovative.

Percentage of innovative companies by combined authority/growth region (registered address), all sectors (2025)

10%

Source: The Data City
License: CC BY-SA 4.0

Notes: Innovation intensity refers to the percentage of digital companies that are likely to be innovative.

About this data

Identifying innovative companies through official statistics can be difficult. For instance, while data on business R&D spending exists, it is often available only at a highly aggregated level, making it hard to pinpoint specific innovative firms.

To address this, The Data City has developed an Innovation Score, which offers insight into the regional distribution of companies likely to be investing in R&D. The score is generated using a machine learning model trained on businesses known to be investing in R&D. This model identifies other companies that use similar language patterns, suggesting they are also likely to be R&D-intensive and innovative.

The analysis relies on website text from companies to find these language patterns. To calculate the percentage of innovative businesses in a region, we divide the number of identified innovative companies by the total number of businesses registered in the area with a website. We believe that businesses with a website represent a significant proportion of the economically active companies, providing a reliable indicator of innovation activity.

The model identifies whether a company appears to be innovative, and not the degree of innovation that a company has. We perform this analysis using a company's registered address and we acknowledge that companies may have multiple operating addresses, and their innovation activity may vary across their locations.

Since last year we have improved the method behind our innovation score, which makes our latest data more refined, but harder to compare with older figures. In future updates, we aim to make year-on-year comparisons possible.