Regional map
Semiconductor activity in the UK is concentrated in 12 regional clusters, each with a distinct technical specialism, spanning all four nations.
The 2026 Government sector study identifies 12 regional clusters: Cambridge / East of England, London, North East, Northern Ireland, North West, Scotland, Southampton / South East, South Wales, Bristol / South West, Midlands, Thames Valley and Yorkshire.
They are not interchangeable. Each cluster has developed around specific research strengths and industrial history — design and semiconductor physics in Cambridge, compound semiconductors in South Wales, photonics and packaging in Glasgow, silicon photonics in Southampton, power electronics in Bristol.
Select a cluster on the map, or choose one from the list below.
Each recognised cluster geography has its own page covering capabilities, manufacturing and research infrastructure, universities, cluster organisations, investment and authoritative sources, with company counts and company listings drawn live from the index. 199 of 375 records sit inside a recognised cluster geography, and 231 records across the index are fully verified.
Cambridge / East of England
26 records · 24 verified · 15 dedicated · 11 diversified
The UK's densest concentration of chip design and semiconductor IP activity, built around the University of Cambridge, its spinouts and the design companies clustered along the M11 corridor.
Scotland
38 records · 35 verified · 34 dedicated · 4 diversified
Scotland's central belt holds the broadest mix of semiconductor activity in the UK — operating wafer fabs, photonics and laser manufacture, packaging and test, and university nanofabrication of genuine industrial standard.
South Wales
13 records · 13 verified · 13 dedicated · 0 diversified
The Newport to Cardiff corridor holds the most complete semiconductor manufacturing chain in the UK: epitaxy, wafer fabrication, process equipment manufacture, packaging and translational research within a short drive of each other.
Bristol / South West
19 records · 14 verified · 18 dedicated · 1 diversified
A silicon design cluster with a fifty-year lineage, now paired with wide-bandgap power electronics and integrated photonics research concentrated at the University of Bristol.
Southampton / South East
7 records · 7 verified · 3 dedicated · 4 diversified
A research-led cluster built on silicon photonics and optical fibre science at the University of Southampton, with a smaller company base weighted towards design, detectors and process equipment.
Thames Valley
21 records · 18 verified · 16 dedicated · 5 diversified
The UK base for several of the world's largest design-tool and chip companies, alongside Oxford research spinouts and a long-established instrument and process equipment industry.
London
14 records · 14 verified · 14 dedicated · 0 diversified
A fabless cluster of design, accelerator and quantum hardware companies grown out of London's universities, alongside the national bodies that coordinate the UK sector.
Midlands
17 records · 13 verified · 7 dedicated · 10 diversified
A manufacturing-weighted cluster built on power semiconductors, wide bandgap materials growth and the process materials and equipment that supply fabs elsewhere.
North East
13 records · 13 verified · 12 dedicated · 1 diversified
The UK's most manufacturing-intensive cluster outside South Wales, concentrated around the NETPark campus at Sedgefield and the wider County Durham and Tees Valley corridor.
North West
14 records · 14 verified · 9 dedicated · 5 diversified
A materials-led cluster anchored by Manchester's graphene and advanced materials research, with established power semiconductor operations in Greater Manchester.
Yorkshire
11 records · 9 verified · 10 dedicated · 1 diversified
A compact, design- and photonics-led cluster centred on Sheffield and Leeds, with national compound semiconductor epitaxy capability at the University of Sheffield.
Northern Ireland
6 records · 6 verified · 5 dedicated · 1 diversified
A small but genuinely industrial cluster combining silicon wafer fabrication near Belfast, photonics and detector manufacture in County Antrim, and large-scale advanced manufacturing in Londonderry.
Design, IP and semiconductor physics
Semiconductor research and chip design depth, including fundamental semiconductor physics, gallium nitride and advanced materials, chip architecture expertise, and a concentration of design, semiconductor IP and fabless activity.
National coordination, fabless design and research spin-outs
Described in the study as the strategic centre of the sector: home to national coordination bodies including the UK Semiconductor Centre at the Institute of Physics, with research strengths in neuromorphic computing, nanotechnology, MEMS and silicon quantum electronics, and business activity weighted towards fabless design, IP and research-led spin-outs.
Compound semiconductors and advanced materials electronics
A business-led advanced electronics cluster extending beyond conventional silicon, with capability in compound semiconductor radio frequency and millimetre-wave components, MEMS manufacturing, photonics for space and aerospace, and flexible organic and radiation-detection electronics.
Integrated photonics, nano-manufacturing and hardware security
A nationally influential hardware security research base alongside integrated photonics and nano-manufacturing capability, and large-scale advanced manufacturing in data storage components.
Upstream materials science and characterisation
Semiconductor relevance concentrated upstream in fundamental materials science, characterisation infrastructure and national materials coordination, including graphene and two-dimensional materials research.
Fabrication, photonics, quantum and advanced packaging
One of the UK's most substantial concentrations of semiconductor and photonics capability, combining industrial-standard cleanroom processing, advanced semiconductor packaging facilities, quantum-enabled sensing, mid-infrared photonics, gallium nitride micro-LED research, memristors, neuromorphic architectures and AI hardware co-design.
Silicon photonics and nanofabrication
Internationally leading silicon photonics capability with advanced nanofabrication infrastructure and national rapid-prototyping foundry access, alongside a business base weighted towards multinational design and integrated device manufacturer activity.
Power electronics, radio frequency and materials
Capabilities in next-generation power semiconductors across wide and ultra-wide bandgap materials, radio frequency and 6G research, device design and materials characterisation infrastructure.
Compound semiconductor manufacturing and supply chain
Recognised in the study as the world's first compound semiconductor cluster, with a near-complete vertical supply chain spanning epitaxial growth, prototyping, wafer manufacturing, device fabrication, advanced packaging, module integration and process equipment.
Wide bandgap materials growth and power semiconductors
Silicon carbide materials growth using industrial chemical vapour deposition capability, contributing to national power semiconductor and next-generation semiconductor materials programmes.
III-V materials, heterogeneous integration and test
Capability spanning III-V compound semiconductor materials and devices, heterogeneous microelectronic integration design, millimetre-wave characterisation, national epitaxy provision, electron-beam lithography and a route into production engineering.
Design, instrumentation and semiconductor-adjacent systems
A corridor of semiconductor and semiconductor-adjacent capability in design, instrumentation, sensors, systems engineering and specialist technology companies, recorded separately where company evidence supports a cluster association rather than a wider South East regional label.
Cluster association comes from the structured company index, where a single cluster is recorded against a company only when its operating location genuinely sits inside that cluster geography. It is not inferred from postcode, region or distance alone, so a company can belong to a region without belonging to a recognised cluster.
Every company record is researched independently against first-party evidence, and inclusion cannot be bought or sponsored. Records marked verified have completed full individual checks; mapped records meet the minimum evidence threshold and are still under review. Cluster association is recorded during full verification, so not every record is assigned to a cluster: 199 of 375 currently are, and most mapped records are still unassigned. All counts on this page and on the individual cluster pages are read live from the index, so they change automatically as records are added, corrected or reclassified. Full detail is set out in the index methodology.
Semiconductor capability is unusually place-bound. Fabrication and characterisation facilities are expensive and immobile, specialist skills pool around them, and supplier relationships form locally. A cluster therefore represents shared infrastructure and a labour market as much as a group of companies, which is why Government analysis treats regional capability as a strategic asset rather than an incidental pattern.
Spotted something inaccurate? Report a factual correction.
A small number of senior appointments, industry events, company announcements and partnerships are carried each year, alongside the independent reference material. Placements are selective and never influence the sector data published here.
Commercial opportunities and enquiries