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Areas of strategic importance

An overview of enterprises and employment for the five areas of strategic importance

Businesses Newcastle North Tyneside South Tyneside Durham Gateshead Sunderland Northumberland
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Defining the areas of strategic importance

The five areas of strategic importance were identified in an update of the North East LEP’s Strategic Economic Plan in 2022. They are all areas of existing and emerging regional strength. The five areas are advanced manufacturing, digital, energy and health and life sciences, and knowledge intensive business services. The figures reported on this page are based on standard industrial classification codes.
 

Data sources

The data on this page is from the UK business counts and the business register and employment survey. These are snapshots from the inter-departmental business register taken in March 2023 and March 2022, meaning the employment data is one year behind the enterprise data.

 

Number of enterprises

In 2023 there were 12,000 enterprises in the five areas of strategic importance across the North East LEP area. This was 345 fewer than in 2022, however, this was driven by a fall in the number of micro enterprises (businesses with between 0-9 employees).

Of the total enterprises in 2023, 2,740 were in County Durham, 2,415 were in Newcastle upon Tyne and 2,180 were in Northumberland.


Employment

In 2022 the total employment in the North East LEP’s areas of strategic importance was 144,000. Knowledge intensive business services was the single largest sector of employment with 89,000 in employment in this sector in the same year, followed by advanced manufacturing which employed 62,000 people (there is some overlap between the definitions of individual areas).

Overall, the areas of strategic importance accounted for 17% of the employment in the North East LEP area. They accounted for 20% in England excluding London.
 



Additional data

Advanced manufacturing

Digital tech

Health and life sciences

Knowledge intensive business services