Servitizing industrial regions

The paper will explore the evolving role of service sectors in relation to manufacturing activities within local systems of production. It will discuss whether issues related to spatial proximity have shaped the value chains of manufacturing activities. Territorial servitisation is here defined as the symbiotic recoupling between services and manufacturing that impacts on their relative value creation contribution to both value chains and to consumers. We present empirical evidence from the UK by means of employment data at NUTS 2 level and by 5- digit sector level.