Celebrating the Northern Signal of Innovation

07/11/2025

Today, on STEM Day, we take a moment to celebrate the ingenuity, collaboration, and engineering excellence that define our region — and to reflect on how far the Northern England RF Cluster has come in shaping the technologies that connect and protect our world.

At Slipstream Design, our story is part of that evolution. Nearly 15 years ago, we began our journey as a team of RF engineers with roots in Filtronic, one of Yorkshire’s original pioneers of high-frequency electronics. What started as a small engineering venture in Shipley has grown into a company at the forefront of radar, communications, and embedded processing systems — serving clients across aerospace, defence, and space sectors.

But our story is just one signal in a much wider constellation of innovation that stretches across the North.

A Legacy of Engineering Excellence

For decades, Northern England has been quietly powering the global communications industry. From the early days of RF component manufacturing in Leeds and County Durham to the satellite and 6G research now underway in Sheffield, York, and Huddersfield, the region has built a deep and resilient knowledge base.

Today, this cluster of expertise connects over 140 companies and more than 50 academic and research institutions through initiatives like Make UK, Space Hub Yorkshire, and Space North. 

The North of England has an unusually dense concentration of research universities with global reputations in RF, microwave, materials science, and communications engineering. 

These institutions don’t just publish papers — they actively nurture the next generation of RF innovators, spin out companies, co-develop prototypes, and license technology to local firms. This makes the regional innovation system unusually tight and responsive.

Together, they span every aspect of the RF and space value chain — from materials and antennas to signal processing, resilient communications, and intelligent sensing.

This is not just a regional strength. It’s one of global significance. Northern RF firms and research groups export high-value intellectual property, technologies, materials, products and know-how to telecoms, security, and space customers worldwide — contributing to the UK’s position as a leader in advanced communication systems. This includes plugging into worldwide aircraft, satellites, and ground stations. 

The cluster has already attracted the likes of global companies, investment, and partnerships with the likes of Leonardo, Rafael, Lockheed Martin and Airbus having facilities in the region. This has embedded them so they can draw on the regional strengths but also, in exchange, the RF cluster has been embedded within their global networks. 

Slipstream Design’s Part in the RF Cluster

At Slipstream Design, we’ve seen first-hand how collaboration and innovation thrive in this environment. Our engineering roots at Filtronic taught us the importance of precision, agility, and technical depth — values that continue to define how we operate today.

From that foundation, we’ve built our own path in the evolving landscape of RF and digital design:

  • Developing the ASTRO platform, a reconfigurable radar and communications processing module that’s changing how wideband adaptive systems are deployed
  • Partnering with national and regional initiatives, including the DASA Bravo Drop: Space to Innovate programme to explore adaptable radio hardware for future space applications 
  • Investing in R&D talent and facilities, to keep Northern RF engineering at the forefront of next-generation communications and sensing.

Each of these achievements reflects the power of the region’s STEM ecosystem — where ideas exchange between universities, small innovators, and large primes.

A Future Built on Collaboration

The continued success of the Northern RF Cluster depends on sustaining that culture of collaboration. Universities are opening world-class facilities for 6G and millimetre-wave research; companies are scaling up exports and manufacturing capacity; and regional networks are helping attract fresh investment and skilled engineers to the North.

For us, that means two things:

  1. Opportunity — to keep pushing boundaries in how we design, test, and apply Digital & RF systems across new markets
  2. Responsibility — to support the next generation of STEM talent who will take these technologies further than ever before

On STEM Day, we’re reminded that the work we do — from designing radar front-ends to enabling satellite connectivity — is powered by the curiosity and commitment of engineers, scientists, and students who believe in solving hard problems.

Keeping the Northern Signal Strong

The RF cluster across Yorkshire and the North is more than a network of companies and academics  — it’s a community built on shared purpose. It’s proof that innovation doesn’t need to be confined to London, Cambridge, or Silicon Valley. It can — and does — thrive in the heart of northern England, where skill, science, and manufacturing heritage combine to deliver world-leading technology.

As Slipstream Design continues to grow, we’re proud to play our part in that story — connecting our region’s heritage with its future, and helping ensure the North’s signal continues to reach the world.

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