Growth, in general, is obviously a central objective for the UK, but both the Industrial Strategy and the duty to produce Local Growth Plans (LGPs) make clear that government is seeking a particular type of growth. This is growth that is productive, innovation-led, export-oriented and capable of improving the UK’s competitiveness and resilience, rather than simply expanding economic activity in volume terms.
Government’s focus is on ‘growth-driving sectors’, those able to push the productivity frontier, anchor investment and innovation, and deliver spillovers into supply chains and local economies. This approach is intended to generate transformational growth, bringing positive change to the structure and performance of a place’s economy. I.e. Not just more of the same.
It is early days. The Industrial Strategy is not yet a year old and many places are still in the process of designing their local growth plans. However, the Department for Business and Trade has published two quarterly updates on the delivery of the Industrial Strategy, covering the performance of the IS-8 in terms of key delivery milestones, policy and economic metrics, and we assume another is imminent.
The material within the updates provides a helpful, broad overview. But, for us, it doesn’t go far enough in explaining what this activity means for places, for their growth, or for the real-world dynamics shaping sectors on the ground locally. That gap is precisely where Metro Dynamics’ deeper interest begins and precisely what matters for places seeking investment.
As such, we have built on the list of investments and headline overview documents, undertaking additional research to understand the nature of the investments to provide further insights for our work in places.
Only time will truly tell if we see the frontier-level growth, re-shaped economic landscape and new industrial capabilities that the Industrial Strategy is aiming for, but in the first two quarters we can see:
Corporate-led expansion dominating over new capital formation. The majority of commitments so far reflect firms scaling and modernising UK operations, suggesting deepening of value chains rather than wholesale industrial reinvention.
A clear sequencing of transformation: backbone infrastructure first, ecosystem expansion second. Large-scale commitments in AI, energy and advanced manufacturing, followed by a broader wave of innovation-led and capability-building projects.
Digital and Clean Energy acting as enabling platforms across the IS-8. These sectors are not just beneficiaries of investment, they are shaping the conditions for growth in the others.
The acceleration of existing strengths, more than creating new geographies of growth. Investment so far is reinforcing established hubs and corporate footprints rather than fundamentally redistributing economic activity.
This early activity suggests the Industrial Strategy is amplifying the UK’s existing economic architecture and deepening its strongest ecosystems first. While rational, this risks widening gaps unless places with high potential, but currently less developed systems, are actively supported to build capability and attract follow-on investment.
What next?
We await the next update. In the meantime, alongside the overarching perspective on investment trends, we’re planning to develop a series of sector‑specific spotlights and an interactive dashboard to help visualise where investments are landing, their value and scale of impact. This is about creating an evolving, responsive, commentary and tracking resource that places and partners can use to gain a stronger insight into the IS-8 and the investment that is following it now and into the future.
You can download the detailed briefing report here.
Or, scroll down to explore visual, interactive insights on the value, location and sectoral spread of the investments released by DBT. Commentary and interpretation can be found within the detailed briefing report.
For questions or further discussion, please get in touch with fiona.tuck@metrodynamics.co.uk or ben.jones@metrodynamics.co.uk
Value of investments
Location of investments
Sector
Method note: Achieving this has not been straightforward and we are reliant on information in the public domain. As such, it is imperfect but gives enough to see what is in progress. We have had to categorise sector manually as best-fit, given the absence of information within the DBT release using categorisations across more than one sector in some cases. Locations of where investment is landing were provided in some cases in the DBT release. We have built out the detail where additional information could be found but used “place agnostic” where location is not clear (e.g. site TBC, early inward investment commitment).