Research and analysis

Overview of Greenfield foreign direct investment (FDI) 2003 to 2024: methodological note

Published 4 December 2025

The data used in this analysis is downloaded through fDi Markets, from the Financial Times Ltd 2025. This is a subscribed database collecting and collating public data relating to cross-border investments.

The following information is collected from the fDi Markets data dictionary and the Office for National Statistics (ONS)’ methods comparison of foreign direct investment (FDI) estimates^{[footnote 1]} to outline the differences between ONS official estimates of FDI and these estimates from fDi Markets.

fDi Markets only includes Greenfield FDI, and so this analysis is concerned with Greenfield FDI only. fDi Markets classifies Greenfield FDI as cross-border investment in a new physical project or expansion of an existing investment which creates new jobs and capital investment. Joint ventures are only included where they lead to a new physical operation. Mergers and acquisitions (M&As) and other equity investments are not tracked.

The data contained in this service is primarily based on publicly available sources, including:

• Financial Times newswires and internal information sources
• thousands of media sources, including all the world’s top business sources
• over 2,000 industry organisations and investment promotion agencies newswires
• data purchased from market research and publication companies

Each project identified is cross-referenced against multiple sources, with primary focus on direct company sources. This allows further company and project information to be captured, including decision making contacts.

As the data is collected primarily from publicly available sources, Financial Times Ltd takes no responsibility for the accuracy or otherwise of the data. Each project is classified according to its cluster, sector, sub-sector, and business activity, based on a proprietary industry classification system. Each project is classified individually based on the activity at the site in question and as such, a company can have projects classified in multiple sectors.

fDi Markets builds its data based on a bottom-up approach from the activities of individual companies at a project level, tracking information on capital investment and job creation associated with an FDI project. If this information is not available, a proprietary algorithm estimates the jobs and investment. This means that it will be different to official statistics on FDI in the UK, like ONS statistics, where underlying analysis is based on surveys of foreign-owned companies in the UK and supplementary sources, using a top-down approach, covering cross-border financial investment positions and corresponding financial and income flows.

Official statistics do not include information on number of projects and jobs, and so for this reason, data from fDi Markets, the Department for Business and Trade (DBT)’s ‘inward investment results’, or other external sources may be preferred to obtain this information. Estimates from fDi Markets will also differ from DBT’s ‘inward investment results’, which produces FDI estimates over the financial year, using information from DBT-assisted FDI projects and checks against other external sources.

ONS estimates follow strict guidelines on what is included within the scope of FDI. ONS FDI estimates are narrowly defined as the direct investor controlling at least 10% of the voting power of the direct investment enterprise, whereas bottom-up estimates have a broader definition of FDI, sometimes tracking investments without information on the equity participation by investors. Due to the data sources used by the ONS, the estimates reflect all current inward relationships, whereas fDi Markets only captures new FDI activity.

Furthermore, ONS estimates include only investment and M&As where the financial transaction has been completed, and account for disinvestments. fDi Markets, however, also includes announced but incomplete investments. The data is collected in real time as announced by a company. This can sometimes overstate or understate headline FDI estimates as some deals may not be completed for a while or see completion at all. The data on fDi Markets is therefore subject to revision if deals fall through or as additional information is released on previous investment projects. Due to this fact, figures from the latest release of the ‘Overview of Greenfield foreign direct investment (FDI)’ publication should be used where possible. fDi Markets data also does not consider disinvestments and therefore can overstate headline FDI estimates.

The origin of investment is another source of difference. Official estimates allocate FDI to the country of the immediate parent company and the financial transaction between the company and the UK-based company but does not capture further funds raised by the UK-based company elsewhere. Alternatively, fDi Markets measures the source of FDI on a controlling parent company basis and captures all investments undertaken by that foreign-owned UK-based company, including domestically raised capital.

Another difference is how often FDI data is released. Official estimates are released on an annual basis, whereas data on fDi Markets is updated daily and in real time, allowing for the release of data for the current financial year. The use of publicly available sources allows fDi Markets to update data as and when any new information on a project is released. For this reason, it might be preferred to use data from fDi Markets or other external sources that release data in real time.

The final major difference in fDi Markets data to ONS statistics is the granularity of data in terms of sector, sub-sector or activity level due to fDi Markets’ bottom-up approach. This can allow for more bespoke analysis. However, this needs to be considered against the methods that the data is gathered by and the use of estimates for jobs and capital expenditure values where not publicly available.

The following table sets out a number of sources that provide data on UK inward FDI and their properties, as collected from the ONS’ methods comparison of FDI estimates^{[footnote 2]}.

Table 1: UK inward FDI sources

UK inward FDI sources specifications	ONS	The Financial Times Ltd – fDi Markets	Ernst & Young – The UK Attractiveness Survey	IBM – Global Locations Trends	DBT – inward investment results
Official statistics status	Yes	No	No	No	Yes
Methodological approach	Top-down	Bottom-up	Bottom-up	Bottom-up	Bottom-up
Analysis accessibility	Public	Public	Public	Public	Public
Data accessibility	Public	Subscription	Not Available	Subscription	Public
Number of projects/jobs	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Coverage	Foreign investment of at least 10% of the ordinary shares or voting power, M&As	Greenfield	New projects	New and expansion projects	Greenfield, Brownfield, M&As
Sources	The Foreign Direct Investment Survey, Bank of England, web-scraping	Publicly available sources	European Investment Monitor	Industry-specific sources, country-specific media, investment promotion agencies	Data from projects assisted by DBT
Release timelines	Annual	Report is annual but data is real-time	Report is annual but data is real-time	Annual	Annual

To carry out this analysis, we have mapped fDi Markets data to the individual sectors set out in the Industrial Strategy (IS) sectors and the National Security and Investment (NSI) Act sectors. The mapping to show which fDi Markets sub-sectors, or clusters, have been aggregated under each of the IS and NSI Act sectors is presented in this methodological note. A sub-sector is a more specific area within a sector in which the FDI project is involved. A cluster is the industry the project is serving or the end user. Due to the broad nature of the IS sectors, there are several sub-sectors which feature in multiple IS sectors, such that some projects may be captured in multiple IS sectors.

The mapping used in this publication is not an official government position, may be subject to change, or may differ from other data publications on the IS or NSI Act sectors. These are synthetic aggregations made by the authors. The mappings are separate to other data publications that make any reference to sectors analysed in this publication.

Greenfield FDI into the Life Sciences IS sector is based on the Life Sciences industry cluster in fDi Markets, rather than specific sub-sectors. This cluster includes projects in Pharmaceuticals, Biotechnology and Medical Devices, as well as some projects in adjacent sectors such as Healthcare, Software and IT, Business Services and other industries where these projects have been tagged as Life Sciences. This follows the definition used by the Office for Life Sciences in their ‘Life sciences competitiveness indicators’ publication.

This publication includes analysis on a number of selected country groups:

• Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)

• European Union (EU)

• Group of Seven (G7)

• Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)

• Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)

These selected country groups are not mutually exclusive, and a number of countries may overlap in more than one country group. Only those countries with reported investment have been included in the country groups.

This publication produces some UK International Territorial Level 1 (ITL1)^{[footnote 3]} regional analysis. In order to do this, admin-region level data from fDi Markets was mapped to the UK ITL1 regions.

The data used for this analysis was downloaded on 2 October 2025. Data was converted from the United States dollar to the UK pound on fDi Markets using the exchange rate of 0.76 = USD $1.

As mentioned, due to fDi Markets capturing announced but incomplete investments and collecting data in real time, data is subject to change when additional information on a previous investment is released. For this reason, since completing this analysis, some estimates may have slightly changed.

Therefore, all data in this note should be taken as an approximation. Some figures for historical years may also differ to those in previous publications due to these revisions, so only data from this release should be used. Furthermore, due to differences in timing of downloads for analysis, the data in this publication may differ to that released by The Financial Times Ltd in their annual fDi Markets report.

Note that, while the figures in this analysis represent Greenfield FDI capital expenditure announced in a particular year, these investments are often realised over a number of years. The value of announced Greenfield FDI capital expenditure in a given year is different to the value of Greenfield FDI capital expenditure realised in a given year.

Industrial Strategy (IS) sectors – fDi Markets sub-sectors aggregation and mapping

Advanced Manufacturing

The fDi Markets sub-sectors mapped to the Industrial Strategy (IS) Advanced Manufacturing sector are:

• agriculture, construction, and mining machinery
• aircraft
• aircraft engines, other parts and auxiliary equipment
• all other electrical equipment and components
• all other industrial machinery
• all other transportation (automotive OEM)
• all other transportation (non-automotive OEM)
• audio and video equipment (consumer electronics)
• audio and video equipment (electronic components)
• automobiles
• basic chemicals
• batteries
• boiler, tank, and shipping container
• commercial and service industry machinery
• communication and energy wires and cables
• communications equipment
• computer and peripheral equipment
• cutlery and handtools
• electric lighting equipment
• electrical equipment
• electromedical and electrotherapeutic apparatus
• electronics and appliances stores
• engines and turbines
• food product machinery
• general purpose machinery
• guided missile and space vehicles
• heavy duty trucks
• household appliances
• light trucks and utility vehicles
• magnetic and optical media
• measuring and control instruments
• metalworking machinery
• military armoured vehicle, tank, and components
• motor vehicle body and trailers
• motor vehicle brake systems
• motor vehicle electrical and electronic equipment
• motor vehicle gasoline engines and engine parts
• motor vehicle seating and interior trim
• motor vehicle stamping
• motor vehicle steering and suspension components
• motor vehicle transmission and power train parts
• motorcycle, bicycle, and parts
• other (aerospace)
• other (business machines and equipment)
• other (consumer electronics)
• other (engines and turbines)
• other (medical devices)
• other (semiconductors)
• other (space and defence)
• other chemical products and preparation
• other motor vehicle parts
• paints, coatings, additives and adhesives
• paper industry machinery
• pesticide, fertilisers and other agricultural chemicals
• plastics and rubber industry machinery
• power transmission equipment
• printing machinery and equipment
• railroad rolling stock
• resin and artificial synthetic fibres and filaments
• sawmill and woodworking machinery
• semiconductor machinery
• semiconductors and other electronic components
• ships and boats
• soap, cleaning compounds, and toilet preparation
• textile machinery
• ventilation, heating, air conditioning, and commercial refrigeration equipment manufacturing
• wiring devices

Clean Energy Industries

The fDi Markets sub-sectors mapped to the IS Clean Energy Industries sector are:

• biomass power
• engines and turbines
• geothermal electric power
• hydroelectric power
• marine electric power
• nuclear electric power generation
• other electric power generation (renewable energy)
• solar electric power
• wind electric power

Creative Industries

The fDi Markets sub-sectors mapped to the IS Creative Industries sector are:

• advertising, PR, and related
• architectural, engineering, and related services
• audio and video equipment (consumer electronics)
• audio and video equipment (electronic components)
• cable and other subscription programming
• custom computer programming services
• internet publishing and broadcasting and web search
• jewellery and silverware
• motion picture and sound recording industries
• museums, historical sites, and similar
• newspaper, periodical, book, and directory publishers
• performing arts, spectator sports, and related
• radio and TV broadcasting
• software publishers, except video games
• specialised design services
• sporting goods, hobby, books and music
• video games, applications and digital content

Defence

The fDi Markets sub-sectors mapped to the IS Defence sector are:

• guided missile and space vehicles
• military armoured vehicle, tank, and components
• other (space and defence)

Digital and Technologies

The fDi Markets sub-sectors mapped to the IS Digital and Technologies sector are:

• all other information services
• communication and energy wires and cables
• communications equipment
• computer and peripheral equipment
• computer facilities management services
• computer systems design services
• custom computer programming services
• data processing, hosting, and related services
• internet publishing and broadcasting and web search
• magnetic and optical media
• navigational instruments
• other (biotechnology)
• other (semiconductors)
• other (software and IT services)
• other computer related services
• other telecommunications
• satellite telecommunications
• semiconductor machinery
• semiconductors and other electronic components
• software publishers, except video games
• wired telecommunication carriers
• wireless telecommunication carriers

Financial Services

The fDi Markets sub-sectors mapped to the IS Financial Services sector are:

• corporate and investment banking
• insurance
• investment management
• other (financial services)
• retail banking

Life Sciences

The fDi Markets cluster mapped to the IS Life Sciences sector is:

• life sciences cluster

Professional and Business Services

The fDi Markets sub-sectors mapped to the IS Professional and Business Services sector are:

• accounting, tax preparation, bookkeeping, and payroll services
• advertising, PR, and related
• architectural, engineering, and related services
• business support services
• employment services
• environmental consulting services
• legal services
• management consulting services
• other support services
• professional, scientific and technical services
• rental and leasing services
• specialised design services
• speciality trade contractors

National Security and Investment (NSI) Act sectors – fDi Markets sub-sectors aggregation and mapping 

This analysis identified mapping to fDi Markets sub-sectors for the 11 out of 17 National Security and Investment (NSI) Act sectors set out in this section.

Advanced Materials

The fDi Markets sub-sectors mapped to the NSI Act Advanced Materials sector are:

• coating, engraving, heat treating, and allied activities
• forging and stamping
• metalworking machinery
• other (semiconductors)
• paints, coatings, additives and adhesives
• resin and artificial synthetic fibres and filaments
• semiconductor machinery
• semiconductors and other electronic components
• textile machinery

Communications

The fDi Markets sub-sectors mapped to the NSI Act Communications sector are:

• all other information services
• audio and video equipment (electronic components)
• communication and energy wires and cables
• communications equipment
• internet publishing and broadcasting and web search
• navigational instruments
• other telecommunications
• radio and TV broadcasting
• wired telecommunication carriers
• wireless telecommunication carriers

Computing Hardware

The fDi Markets sub-sectors mapped to the NSI Act Computing Hardware sector are:

• computer facilities management services
• computer systems design services
• other computer related services

Cryptographic Authentication

The fDi Markets sub-sector mapped to the NSI Act Cryptographic Authentication sector is:

• retail banking

Data Infrastructure

The fDi Markets sub-sectors mapped to the NSI Act Data Infrastructure sector are:

• computer and peripheral equipment
• custom computer programming services
• data processing, hosting, and related services
• magnetic and optical media
• other (software and IT services)
• software publishers, except video games

Defence

The fDi Markets sub-sectors mapped to the NSI Act Defence sector are:

• guided missile and space vehicles
• military armoured vehicle, tank, and components
• other (space and defence)

Energy

The fDi Markets sub-sectors mapped to the NSI Act Energy sector are:

• biomass power
• engines and turbines
• fossil fuel electric power
• gasoline stations
• geothermal electric power
• hydroelectric power
• marine electric power
• natural, liquefied and compressed gas
• nuclear electric power generation
• oil and gas extraction
• other electric power generation (coal, oil and gas)
• other electric power generation (renewable energy)
• other petroleum and coal products
• petroleum bulk stations and terminals
• petroleum refineries
• pipeline transportation of crude oil
• pipeline transportation of natural gas
• solar electric power
• support activities for mining and energy (coal, oil and gas)
• wind electric power

Satellite and Space Technologies

The fDi Markets sub-sectors mapped to the NSI Act Satellite and Space Technologies sector are:

• other (aerospace)
• satellite telecommunications

Suppliers to the Emergency Services

The fDi Markets sub-sectors mapped to the NSI Act Suppliers to the Emergency Services sector are:

• electromedical and electrotherapeutic apparatus
• medical equipment and supplies
• other (medical devices)

Synthetic Biology

The fDi Markets sub-sectors mapped to the NSI Act Synthetic Biology sector are:

• biological products (except diagnostic)
• in-Vitro diagnostic substances
• other (biotechnology)

Transport

The fDi Markets sub-sectors mapped to the NSI Act Transport sector are:

• air transportation
• freight/distribution services
• support activities for transportation
• water transportation

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1. Office for National Statistics (2020). ‘Foreign Direct Investment: a methods comparison of ONS and externally produced estimates’ ↩

2. Refer to footnote 1. ↩

3. International Territorial Levels (ITLs) is a hierarchical classification of administrative areas, used by OECD member countries for statistical purposes. Within the UK, 3 ITLs are determined. Estimates in this publication focus on ITL1 classifications covering English regions, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. There are 12 UK ITL1 classifications. The ONS has further information on ITLs. ↩