A crib sheet of key messages for the Manchester Delegation at MIPIM 2026 to help promote our city region on the world stage.
Manchester: Breaking Boundaries, Building Tomorrow
Over the past decade, Greater Manchester has become the fastest growing part of the UK economy.
Our city region is entering its most ambitious decade yet, accelerating our level of growth to improve economic performance across the city region.
Our focus is Good Growth. Growth that improves lives, reaches every place and benefits every community, so no one and no place is left behind.
By bringing together the entire GM system, building upon strong public and private partnerships as well as working with national partners, we can drive transformative change.
Key Stats
The city region has been growing at a rate of 3.1%, compared to 1.3% nationally
Largest city region economy outside London, with a gross value added (GVA) of £100 billion
Home to more than 2.8 million people
Most liveable city in the UK - The Economist’s Global Liveability Index 2025
Attracted more international investment than any other UK regional city for the last decade - Oco Global, Local Heroes, 2024
Home to the UK’s fastest growing tech sector - Chancellor Rachel Reeves, Economy Speech, Jan 2025
More than 120,000 students with over 50% retention rate centre for cities, 2019
Why Greater Manchester?
Greater Manchester has a proven track record of delivery, driven by devolution and a uniquely hyper collaborative model across ten local authorities
Over the last decade, our city skyline has become unrecognisable. We’ve built over 100,000 new homes and have developed internationally renowned clusters in each of our five frontier sectors
We are a globally competitive destination for investment, culture and innovation, with internationally recognised sector strengths
Devolution has given us control over our transport infrastructure, our skills development and has enabled us to develop Mayoral Development Corporations, all of this is contributing to our growth.
Greater Manchester’s population is growing at a rapid pace, as a hive of culture and magnet for some of the world’s biggest businesses, we’re attracting talent and retaining a large portion of our university graduates, giving businesses confidence to invest with us.
Our success gives us the confidence to back our places and raise ambition for the next decade, ensuring they all succeed.
A new decade of Good Growth
With a 10-year pipeline of opportunities and a collective vision to create a thriving city-region where everyone can live a good life, Greater Manchester is poised to deliver its best decade yet.
Our Integrated Pipeline maps out the physical developments that transform our city region in the decade to come. For example, public control over our transport system means we can make sure new districts and developments are well connected by our pioneering Bee Network, creating the right environment for our businesses to thrive, and supporting people into high-quality jobs in growing parts of our economy.
The Integrated Pipeline spreads and accelerates growth across all ten districts, not just the city centre, enabling development at a scale and pace not seen before.
This alignment will create an even stronger, more productive Greater Manchester economy, generating new jobs with higher wages, reducing poverty, ill health and unemployment, boosting wellbeing and life expectancy and raising living standards for all. It will deliver:
New homes to address housing needs
Revitalised town centres
New employment and innovation sites
High-quality jobs
The energy and transport infrastructure to underpin growth
To pump prime our Integrated Pipeline, we’ve created a £1bn GM Good Growth Fund to unlock priority projects, making them viable and building investor confidence.
We have allocated £400m to the first wave of projects –high-impact housing, employment and town centre regeneration projects.
The projects we’ve chosen will deliver nearly 3,000 new homes, over 22,000 new jobs and 2 million square feet of employment space.
Creating a world-leading place to do business
We will build on decades of successful public-private partnerships to create nationally significant and globally connected economic clusters in the parts of our economy with the greatest growth potential.
These sectors will build on existing assets to create opportunities across the region. They include:
Advanced Materials and Manufacturing (Atom Valley, Ashton and Stalybridge Gateway, Crescent Innovation Zone, MIX Manchester, Northfold)
Digital, Cyber and AI (City Centre, Sister)
Health Innovation and Life Sciences (Oxford Road Corridor, Crescent Innovation Zone, MIX Manchester, Northfold, Sister)
Creative and Media (MediaCity, Crescent Innovation Zone)
Low Carbon (Trafford and Carrington, Atom Valley, Crescent Innovation Zone, Northfold)
These clusters will integrate with our innovation ecosystem of businesses, universities, further education colleges, and research institutions.
They will help us to attract even more world-class businesses and create high-quality jobs for residents, helping us to attract and retain leading talent.
These clusters will also ensure that businesses of all sizes and across all sectors can access the right support at the right time and capitalise on the opportunities offered by growth and international trade.
A thriving city-region where everyone can live a good life
Our track record of success has given us the confidence to back our places.
We are now at setting out our ambition for the next decade of Good Growth for GM - building on success to date and not just maintaining momentum but increasing our ambition to keep our economy growing and make sure growth reaches every part of our city region.
Growth in Greater Manchester is not an end in itself – it’s a way of improving lives by creating new opportunities and broadening access to them.
As well as creating employment and innovation spaces to help businesses thrive, our integrated pipeline will also create new homes and neighbourhoods around major employment sites, boasting excellent connectivity, so people can maximise economic opportunities.
The region is committed to creating a line of sight to the job growth created. The Greater Manchester Baccalaureate will connect residents to the jobs being created via technical education, while the Regeneration Skills Academy will ensure we have the skills needed locally to deliver our ambitious pipeline.
By sequencing development, we can ensure infrastructure and public services are lined up to create thriving, safe, well-connected communities as well as high-quality jobs.
From investing in green spaces to wellbeing and climate resilience, transport links via the Bee Network and low-carbon innovations, we can create sustainable neighbourhoods fit for the future.
A hyper‑collaborative model
Greater Manchester’s previous success has come through working together through a place-first approach, not competing internally
Our region’s strong track record of public‑private partnerships give investors confidence in our region’s ability to deliver.
Tools such as Mayoral Development Corporations enable locally‑led regeneration at pace, bringing together stakeholders and powers to accelerate delivery and minimise risk.
We’re looking to accelerate collaborations across the region, working with the partners that will back our places.
The bottom line
Greater Manchester is ready to invest, ready to partner and ready to deliver.
The region is just getting started, with huge opportunities in all ten boroughs covering residential, innovation and industrial sites and infrastructure.
With a clear pipeline, committed funding and a proven model, this is a decade‑defining opportunity for investors and partners.
We’re backing our places and will look to support investors that back them too as we work to deliver a decade of Good Growth.