The North West of England still bears the legacy of its rich industrial past. It retains, by UK standards, a large manufacturing sector with the highest productivity level of any UK region, although at 9% of jobs, it is less than half the size it was in the early 1980s. Many service sectors are now bigger employers, including retail, health and social care, business & professional services, and hospitality & tourism, which have generally lower productivity levels than in manufacturing. There are a range of new emerging clusters linked to leading edge R&D capabilities in sectors such as life sciences, chemicals, advanced materials, digital industries, and nuclear energy, but this has not yet translated into more broad-based prosperity.
