Work
A move to Somerset can make commercial sense: energy, aerospace, food, creative businesses and professional services are already here.
A move to Somerset is not only a lifestyle choice. The original Somerset 3D brief put it plainly: scores of small-business success stories, the prospect of proper returns, and the chance to work beside companies that already sell around the world.
Energy
Nuclear power has shaped the north of the county for two generations. Hinkley Point C, on the coast near Bridgwater, was described by the service as an investment in the order of £18 billion when the site was being promoted. Later public estimates of the project cost have risen, so treat any single figure as a snapshot. What has stayed constant is the shape of the opportunity: thousands of people on site through construction, about 900 operational jobs once the station is generating, and a supply chain that reaches well beyond the fence.
Renewables and environmental technology grew alongside that. Somerset 3D counted more than 100 businesses, from anaerobic digestion to solar. Bridgwater has hosted specialist space such as the Somerset Energy Innovation Centre on Bristol Road, reported by the council as roughly 2,400 square metres of offices with advisers who understand innovation and the Hinkley supply chain.
Aerospace and advanced engineering
Yeovil is the centre of gravity. Leonardo, previously AgustaWestland, anchors a helicopter and advanced-engineering cluster that draws on a deep local pool of skilled people. The wider sector was credited with around 9,500 jobs. Smaller firms supply that cluster and, increasingly, use places such as the Yeovil Innovation Centre and the iAero centre, which Invest Somerset describes as a research, design and innovation facility for aerospace and high-value engineering.
Food, creative work and services
The landscape has fed more than tourism. Somerset 3D argued that the county had more farmers and food producers than anywhere else in the UK, supporting food and drink worth more than £500 million, and that creative small firms together contributed about £314 million. Business services employed more than 31,600 people, many of them relocated from Bristol, Bath or London, with Taunton the clearest growth town.
Names associated with this economy, and cited on the original About Somerset page, include Leonardo, Clarks, Mulberry, Numatic, Honeywell Aerospace and Yeo Valley. Some of those brands sit just outside the present Somerset Council boundary and still belong in the regional story the service told.
Regional context
Somerset worked with Devon, Plymouth and Torbay through the Heart of the South West Local Enterprise Partnership on agri-food, marine, aerospace and advanced engineering, and nuclear. Local enterprise partnerships have since been folded back into local government, but those four sectors remain the right map of where an investor will find peers.