Midlands cluster snapshot – Aerospace

In May, the Midlands Engine Partnership published our report, Exploring the Investment Potential of Midlands Clusters, to support Midlands Engine partners, businesses and the UK Government to better understand and develop clusters across the Midlands.

Exploring clusters nominated by partners and supported by The Data City, Beauhurst and Wavteq, the report highlights 24 clusters and 6 super clusters across the Midlands.

Over the coming weeks, Cluster Snapshots will be published for each of these clusters – providing the latest insight into the business, talent, innovation and investment ecosystems of each along with mapping and key trends.

The first of these Cluster Snapshots, published yesterday (27 June), is for Advanced Manufacturing – Aerospace.

This established cluster in the Midlands is arguably the biggest in the UK, with up to 30% of the country’s aerospace businesses based here (that’s around 7% of Europe’s aerospace industry) and over one-fifth of jobs (estimated at over 50,000), a major regional Midlands Aerospace Alliance and strategic companies such as Rolls-Royce.

This initial analysis complements a more detailed research project Midlands Engine Observatory is currently conducting with Midlands Aerospace Alliance, related specifically to the size and scale of the Midlands aerospace cluster and looking into the level of innovation funding received across the industry.

This will be published in late summer 2023, providing additional detailed insight to what has been presented in this illustrative, ‘first cut’ analysis through the Cluster Snapshot. The broad results and visualisation of the research projects are similar, and their findings complement each other.