The North West has taken second spot after London for investment, with a £1.19bn haul in H1 2026, according to the latest research from Barclays.
The Barclays Regional Investment Map reveals that the North West attracted the bumper near-£1.2bn during the half, eclipsing its H2 2025 total with an 89% jump. The stand out here was an £814m raise for Ineffable Intelligence, an Altrincham-based AI firm developing reinforcement learning software to train AI through trial and error. The North West also led the way in terms of company population growth (+2.41%), closely followed by the North East and Scotland (both up +2.39%).
That’s more investment coming into the North West than any UK region outside London, underlining the strength of its economy and investor confidence in northern growth businesses.
Growth was led by high-value industrial strategy sectors, particularly in the digital and technology sectors, where North West businesses secured the lion’s share of the incoming investment – more than £1.01bn in fundraising during H1 2026.
Professional and business services also put in a solid shift, attracting £122.1m, while life sciences secured £65.6m and financial services £37.9m.
The North West is now home to more than 115,000 businesses across the eight innovation intensive sectors in the Industrial Strategy dataset.
Professional and business services remains the largest sector, with 48,766 businesses, followed by creative industries (24,572), digital and technologies (23,649), and financial services (13,221).
Business secretary Jonathan Reynolds said: “This is terrific news for UK businesses and shows how bringing business and innovation together through the Industrial Strategy can help drive economic growth and create jobs.
“My ambition does not stop here. I want to go further by bringing good growth to every postcode and provide investors with the stability and confidence they need to plan not just for the next year, but for the next 10 years and beyond.”
Emma Armstrong, head of business banking in Manchester for Barclays, added: “These figures show the North West continuing to build real momentum as a destination for investment, innovation and high-growth businesses.
“The strength of the region’s digital and technology sector is particularly encouraging, and reflects the depth of talent, commercial ambition and innovation we see across the region.
“Continued support for scale-up businesses, access to finance and stronger connections between industry, investors and local ecosystems will be important to sustaining this growth.”
