The Cluster explorer or 'Local Sector Strength finder' gives you the ability to access our 49 local and tradable industry clusters to look at what makes your region unique. We do this by comparing national growth as Location Quotient for your given region. 'Employment Concentration' (EC) is a way of quantifying how concentrated a particular industry group is in a region as compared to the nation. It can reveal what makes a particular region “unique.” For example, if Logistics and Ecommerce accounts for 10% of jobs in your area but 1% of jobs nationally, then the area’s Logistics and Ecommerce industries have an EC of 10. So in your area, Logistics and Ecommerce accounts for a larger than average “share” of total jobs—the share is ten times larger than normal. The national average EC will be 1.
The Cluster Explorer
With the clusters mapped to your local authority, we can then distinguish separate categories to attribute each cluster to. These categories help distinguish what makes your region unique so we have split them into 3 main areas:
Strengths: Industries that are growing nationally, and in which your region has a comparative advantage over other areas of the country, meaning that your area is well placed to benefit.
Opportunities: Industries that are growing nationally, and in which your region has a healthy presence rather than a comparative advantage, so presenting you with opportunities to try to grow them.
Risks: Industries in which your region enjoys a comparative advantage over other areas, but which are set to decline nationally in the coming years, indicating that they may be under threat.
By hovering over each bubble, we can get a snapshot of key information for that cluster and by clicking on the bubble, we generate a cluster report
Cluster Overview
The Cluster Overview provides a more detailed analysis for your chosen cluster, and allows you to jump to other report within the Analyst tool.
Cluster summary: Basic information on job figures, growth between 2018-2022 and average wages for your region. We have added national data to provide context for these figures.
Regional trends: Looking from 2003 to 2031 for not only the local authority you have selected, but also the government office region this falls under and the national average. From here you can 'Jump to Regional Comparison by Industry' report to compare against different regions and for more detailed information.
Aggregate changes: Multipliers are used through our Input-Output (I-O) model to measure how important one industry is to other industries in the region.
Industry requirements: Derived from Lightcast’s Input-Output model, this figure describes the purchases a given industry makes from all other industries
Occupations employed by these industries: Data taken from our Staffing pattern table looks at the top 5 occupations that are employed by the industries classified under the current cluster. From here you can 'Jump to Staffing patterns' to find out more about these occupations.
Industry overview: Industries by SIC codes that fall under your current Cluster. For more information, click on one or more of the industries to turn them yellow and select the 'Jump to' option.
