Belfast has a long and rich engineering history as one of the largest shipbuilding cities in the world. Over the last decade Belfast has seen the emergence of a vibrant enterprise and innovation ecosystem in which universities are launchpads for commercialising research, entrepreneurship is thriving, and the city has developed a significant R&D base. In this study, in terms of the proportion of R&D employment within the local engineering economy, Belfast is ranked joint 8th of all 374 local authorities in the UK.
The MacRobert Award winning Bombardiers' resin infused advanced composite aircraft wing reduces fuel burn and waste during manufacture
Engineering economy in Belfast
Employment
Businesses
GVA per engineer
Engineering opportunities in Belfast
Long-established employers include:
- Spirit AeroSystems, Harland & Wolff and Thales (with a combined 340 year track record of engineering in the city) continue to constantly innovate and evolve alongside new emerging sectors.
- Artemis Technologies, lead partner of a Belfast Maritime Consortium awarded £33m by UK Research & Innovation’s Strength in Places Fund to develop zero-emission high-speed ferry.
Economic development
The establishment of Invest NI in the 2000s acted as a catalyst for the ecosystem, creating a vehicle which supports local businesses and attracts investment into the region. Following a period of publicly-funded regeneration which delivered the Titanic Quarter, a new innovation district, and NI Science Park (now Catalyst NI), private sector leadership has now emerged, focused on creating conditions for business growth and entrepreneurship.
Entrepreneurship
Ormeau Baths embodies this, set up by four entrepreneurs, focused on growing the startup community by providing the space, investment and an offer which was previously absent. This subsequently led to the co-location of Barclays Eagle Lab and several organisations which are now pivotal in delivering some of the most successful business support programmes within the region – IgniteNI, Ormeau Labs programme (with TechStart Ventures) and the Royal Academy of Engineering’s first regional Enterprise Hub.
Titanic Quarter, Belfast. Photo credit: K. Mitch HodgeK Mitch
The rise of this enterprise ecosystem has coincided with the ongoing evolution and diversification of the city’s advanced composites, aerospace and defence and security industries. The city has been recognised nationally for its strengths in advanced manufacturing, cyber and fintech and health and life sciences. This has delivered significant benefits for the city – recent studies have shown Northern Ireland has almost triple the number of engineering start-up and scale up businesses than the UK average[1]. Belfast is now seen as an attractive destination for investment and innovation. Successive programmes have provided a new pathway for early-stage businesses to investor communities and consequently, equity deals at seed stage are higher than the UK average with over £100m venture capital raised in 2021[2]. There is now a dynamic set of businesses, investing in R&D at a faster rate than many other regions across the UK and Belfast sits at the heart of that. For many in the city, it is an exciting time for entrepreneurship, innovation, and engineering.
[1] Metro Dynamics (2022), A baseline Study of Northern Ireland’s Engineering and Enterprise Ecosystem, 2022
[2] Chris McClelland. Data and insights into Ignite NI, October 2021.