
UK Advanced Materials Industry
Get know the UK’s Advanced Materials industry and the companies innovating in biomaterials, composites and carbon-based materials. View sector trends, industry growth, key financial information and download our free sector report today.
Download our UK Advanced Materials report
Real-time data that keeps pace with the emerging economy
Fed up with outdated and unreliable data? Get to know the UK economy in real-time and analyse emerging sectors and innovative companies with the power of The Data City’s AI-powered platform.
Trusted by industry-leading policy makers, economists & institutions
What are Advanced Materials?
Advanced Materials is an emerging trend of new materials with enhanced or superior properties being designed, produced and used to increase performance in the manufacturing industry.
There are a broad range of companies and start-ups in the UK working to create, commercialise and improve materials and products that incorporate Advanced Materials. Today the industry encompasses a wide range of practices from the creation of biomaterials and carbon-based materials to the development of technical ceramics and specialised metal alloys.
Advanced Materials are integral for the design, production and improvement of many innovative new products and devices, including lasers, fiber optics and smartphones.
Advanced Materials sector summary
Discover real-time data and insights sourced directly from The Data City platform, driven by our innovative Real-Time Industrial Classifications (RTICs). Our RTICs harness the power of web data and machine learning, and are published with industry experts for precision and relevance.
Here are the key facts about the Advanced Materials sector. The sector has a turnover of £84.3bn currently, has received £1.2bn of investment and the sector is growing at -0.3% per year.
Advanced Materials verticals
Our industry data goes deep. See the top verticals and specialisms making waves in the UK Advanced Materials industry today.
Our Advanced Materials RTIC is made up of 6 individual verticals. The top verticals in this sector include Metal Alloys, and Advanced Composites. You can find out more about the verticals by downloading our RTIC report, or by signing up for a free trial of The Data City platform.
- Sector Code Description Records
-
RTIC0034 Advanced Materials 886 companies
Companies involved in Advanced Materials Innovation and development. This RTIC has been developed through a collaboration between DSIT policy experts, analysts, and external subject matter experts. The development of this RTIC ran concurrently to National Materials Innovation Strategy (Royce Institute), identifying companies specifically focusing on advanced materials. To understand the taxonomy or the caveats associated with the RTIC do get in touch with the DSIT Advanced Materials team or with Data City. The current RTIC will have future updates, if and when there are new sources that are brought to the attention of the DSIT Advanced Materials team or DSIT deem the list to need a substantive update due to time elapsed or if there are new subsectors to include.
-
Advanced Materials: 2D Materials and Other Nanomaterials124 companies
Companies developing material with any external dimension in the nanoscale (length range from 1 atomic layer to 100 nm) or having internal structure or surface structure in the nanoscale. (NOTE this doesn’t cover smart dust, as smart dust is several orders of magnitude larger than the nanoscale and so isn’t a nanomaterial)
-
Advanced Materials: Advanced Composites179 companies
Companies developing filament and matrix system with significant improvements in properties or performance.
-
Advanced Materials: Emerging Functional Materials80 companies
Any new material, or a material applied for new purposes, that provides intrinsic functionality beyond structural.
-
Advanced Materials: Metal Alloys294 companies
Combination of more than one metal, where the alloy has a metal as the principal element. (NOTE this assumes the ‘single crystal nickel’ is referring to single crystal nickel superalloys, rather than a single crystal of nickel).
-
Advanced Materials: Polymers162 companies
Polymers are materials made of long, repeating chains of molecules. The materials have unique properties, depending on the type of molecules being bonded and how they are bonded. Some polymers bend and stretch, like rubber and polyester. Others are hard and tough, like epoxies and glass.
-
Advanced Materials: Textiles87 companies
Textile is an umbrella term that includes various fiber-based materials, including fibers, yarns, filaments, threads, different fabric types, etc.
-
Advanced Materials industry growth
Based on a growth rate of -0.3%, we expect that this sector could be worth £92.5bn by 2026. Below you can see our forecast of the growth of the sector.
We help policy makers, economists & companies better understand emerging industries
The Data City is a UK-based data provider and SaaS platform focusing on emerging sectors, high growth companies, innovation clusters and investment.
Many of the UK’s leading government departments, local authorities, investment firms and policymakers, use The Data City to gain real-time insights that help drive better investment decisions.

“ If you want a more dynamic and innovative view of your economy, you should definitely consider The Data City

“ Through this visual mapping project, Greater Manchester will be able to showcase our success in the digital sector
“ If you care about technology driven economic growth, you should care about RTICs
Get your free Advanced Materials report 👇
Dig deeper into the UK’s Advanced Materials industry with our free snapshot report.
Includes key insights on market size, investment, growth, location and much more. Data updated every month.
Market data for 400+ industries at your fingertips
At The Data City we use AI and real-time data to map emerging sectors and innovative companies.
Our company database of over 5 million active UK companies houses 400+ Real-Time Industrial Classifications (RTICs) built in partnership with leading experts.
Access market insights, sector trends, employee data, growth stats and investment information for the country’s fastest growing industries.

Discover more with a Free Trial
Keen to dig a little deeper? Sign up for a free trial and get full access our real-time company and sector data.