Although rebalancing the UK economy has long been a focus of UK governments, this has recently used the rhetoric of ‘levelling up’. Amongst other policy instruments, the UK’s Modern Industrial Strategy has been an indicator of the core economic priority areas, with selected local areas also invited to produce their own local industrial strategies to provide a more nuanced delivery of those goals. This article considers the economic profile of five of the Combined Authority areas tasked with delivering the first of these local industrial strategies. By examining the profile of educational attainment, and the core sectors, it examines how well equipped they are to capitalise on these key growth sectors. The article finds that in many cases, the combined authorities have sectors which are comparatively under-represented in terms of the national economy, and have a population which is broadly ill-equipped to access job opportunities in those sectors.

尽管重新平衡英国经济一直是英国政府关注的焦点，但最近这已使用了“拉高水平”的措辞。在其他政策工具中，英国的《现代工业战略》已成为核心经济优先领域的指标，部分地区也受邀制定自己的本地工业战略，以更加细致地实现这些目标。本文考虑了五个联合政府领域的经济概况，这些领域负责提供这些本地产业战略中的第一个。通过检查教育程度和核心部门的状况，它检查了他们如何充分利用这些关键的增长部门。该文章发现，在许多情况下，