UK spotlight: GLASGOW

Cultural offerings and new business sectors are booming in the Scottish city

- EVE LIVINGSTON

For many outside of Glasgow, the city - Scotland's most populous - might still evoke images of manufacturing and heavy industry. Once christened the "second city of empire", Glasgow's industry and economy thrived in the 19th century with factories making everything from soap and sugar to steel and cloth. Of particular note was its booming shipbuilding sector, which at one time produced a fifth of all the world's ships and many of its most famous. The Cutty Sark; the world's largest warship HMS Hood; and the royal family's HMY Britannia all proudly bore the status of being "Clyde-built", synonymous with high quality and expert shipbuilding.

Today, looking out over the imposing River Clyde from the city centre, a few signs of this industrious past remain: the iconic Finnieston Crane, once used to load locomotives and fit ships' engines, looms over the water. At City of Glasgow College's multimillion-pound Riverside campus, shipyard infrastructure has been repurposed to train maritime and engineering students. Beyond the city centre, a handful of shipyards remain in operation.

But Glasgow's changing waterfront represents the evolution of the wider city, and visitors today are likely to find shops, offices, cultural offerings and media hubs in the areas surrounding old shipyards. According to VisitScotland's business arm, Glasgow's emerging sectors include software and digital technologies, creative and cultural sectors, and medical and life sciences. And the city's repositioning as a vibrant international centre at the forefront of new development is clear in its list of accolades: it hosted the Commonwealth Games in 2014; was named the UK's top cultural and creative city by the European Commission in 2019; hosted COP26 in 2021; and was European Capital of Sport in 2023.