Cobalt insight · 2026
Cobalt's view on the North's investment and talent story twelve months since The Great North launched.
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9 pages · PDFOne year on
A year ago, the North's mayors made a simple promise. Stop waiting for a story written in Whitehall and write their own. Twelve months on, that promise has moved from launch to delivery. One of The Great North's founding mayors is now Prime Minister.
“One North. One Voice. One Story.”
The story now
The Great North still brings together 11 current and emerging Strategic Authorities. It is now an operating partnership, convening mayors, government departments and investors around a shared pipeline for clean energy, trade, culture and deeper devolution.
Hull and East Yorkshire completed its first full year in the partnership. Cumbria and Cheshire and Warrington remain in the Devolution Priority Programme, with elections set for May 2027. The UK Industrial Strategy now gives the North's case a fixed national backdrop.
Andy Burnham became Prime Minister in July 2026, with Bev Craig succeeding him in Greater Manchester. In August, he opened No.10 North at Heron House in Manchester. The partnership's leaders are asking to be treated as a strategic partner in UK governance.
A Northern trade mission to India is being planned under a single banner, focused on automotive, life sciences and advanced materials. The partnership is also exploring an early ambition to host the Olympic and Paralympic Games in the North in the 2040s.
Cobalt and BE News are measuring where skills shortages exist across the wider built environment, what drives them and where employers and employees feel the greatest pressure. The campaign covers real estate, housing, planning, architecture, engineering and construction.
Investment creates opportunity, but people deliver it. Planning capacity, construction skills, infrastructure expertise, development talent, asset management and specialist technical roles will determine whether ambition becomes projects on the ground.
What does not change
Scale, talent, renewable energy strength and the growth prize continue to underpin the North's investment and talent story.
The full picture
The Great North spent its first year building the investment story. The next phase depends on turning it into viable projects, infrastructure, homes and jobs, supported by the talent required to deliver them.
