Scores by Authority
Loading..........
The Data is Not Available
Context
Everyone agrees that innovation is key to economic development and growth – but do we know what it actually looks like beyond the stereotype of the high-tech startup?
Our Innovation metric provides scores for companies across all 22 of Wales’s unitary authorities and throughout every sector of the economy. The data highlights innovation hotspots in the southern cities, but also indicates clusters of innovative businesses throughout Wales’s rural and peripheral regions. It also includes innovators in sectors outside of the conventional startup scene – in services, agriculture and retail.
The pathway through innovation to growth and prosperity will look very different across Wales’s diverse geography. We hope our metric can be a first step towards mapping this complex terrain.
Wales’s urban centres have the highest levels of average innovation amongst resident businesses: 0.257 for Swansea and 0.252 for Cardiff. These urban hubs have relatively strong innovation ecosystems; benefiting from a mix of academic institutions, technology hubs, a large and diverse range of businesses, and established economic development strategies.
Nonetheless, innovative companies can be found across Wales, both in smaller clusters (e.g. Aberystwyth and Anglesey/Ynys Môn) and as isolated outliers. By diving deeper into our data, we can explore these diverse innovation ecosystems – get in touch to find out more.
Stay tuned! The first monthly changes will appear here next time.
Our Innovation metric utilises a neural net, trained to recognise signals of innovative activity in a company’s digital profile, with scores ranging between 0 and 1. At the county level, a high score indicates a high average level of Innovation capacity amongst companies in that region, and vice versa.
Naturally, typical levels of innovation will be higher in some business sectors than in others. One would not expect a typical agricultural business to score as high for innovation as a tech company, but this does not mean that agricultural businesses are not capable of innovation.
Our data contains examples of innovative businesses across all regions and sectors, including manufacturing, food and drink, health and beauty and tourism – get in touch to find out more.
Latest news from the region