Getting Started with Smart Island
A guide for business leaders, policymakers, and everyone on the Isle of Man
What is Smart Island?
Smart Island is the Isle of Man's most comprehensive free open data platform. It ingests, enriches, and analyses 30+ datasets from across the island — jobs, vehicles, property, aircraft, biosphere species, marine, planning applications, elections, population demographics, crime, companies, telecoms, IoT sensors, and more. 65+ automated pipelines run daily, nightly, and weekly to keep everything current.
Built by Manx Technology Group, the platform offers 66+ interactive pages, REST APIs, 89 MCP tools for AI assistants, 7 weekly AI advisors, 500+ occupation AI fluency guides, 1.5M species records, 50-year population projections, and live IoT environmental monitoring.
Who is it for?
Smart Island is designed for everyone on the Isle of Man — not just technical users.
Business Leaders / CEOs
Weekly AI-generated market intelligence, competitor analysis, and workforce planning. See which sectors are hiring, what skills are in demand, AI fluency rubrics for 500+ occupations, and how automation is reshaping your industry.
Finance Directors / CFOs
Salary benchmarks across 500+ occupations, 43,000+ property transactions, economic indicators, population projections, and World Bank data. Compare IoM salaries against UK averages and model demographic scenarios.
HR & Recruitment
Skills intelligence from every IoM vacancy, AI fluency rubric matrices showing what good AI adoption looks like for each role, career pathway mapping, and visa eligibility checking.
Policymakers
Census AI exposure analysis, 50-year population projections under 3 migration scenarios, dependency ratio modelling, 80,000+ planning applications, election analysis, and parliamentary data.
Nature Enthusiasts
1.5M species records, 15,000+ species tracked, AI-illustrated bird guides, seasonal wildlife calendar, conservation spotlights, and an interactive marine map with shipwrecks and protected areas.
Anyone Curious
Look up any of the 80,000+ vehicles on the island, check the weather, find grants, explore heritage sites, browse 4,000+ FOI requests, or ask your AI assistant to query any dataset via MCP.
How to get started
Browse 66+ interactive pages
Explore dashboards covering jobs, vehicles, biosphere, population, property, planning, elections, marine, weather, grants, heritage, and much more.
Data catalogue →Connect your AI assistant
Point any MCP-compatible AI (Claude Desktop, Cursor, Windsurf) at Smart Island's 89 tools and query Isle of Man data in natural language.
MCP setup guide →Download open data
Download any of 30+ datasets as JSON for your own analysis, research, or applications — all free under open licences.
Open data downloads →Frequently Asked Questions
Is it free?
Yes, completely free. All 66+ interactive pages, REST APIs, and 89 MCP tools are open access with no authentication required and no paywalls. Smart Island is a community resource for the Isle of Man.
Where does the data come from?
35+ authoritative sources including IoM Government (job listings, vehicle registrations, Land Registry, Aircraft Registry, planning applications, elections), GBIF (1.5M biodiversity records), World Bank (population & demographics), O*NET and ONS (occupational data & salaries), EMODnet (marine), and AI enrichment via Azure AI Foundry. Every source is documented on our data sources page.
How often is the data updated?
65+ automated pipelines run on a strict schedule. Job listings are scraped daily. Weather data refreshes every 3 hours. Vehicle registrations update nightly. AI advisors and market intelligence are regenerated weekly. Species data, planning applications, and election analysis refresh monthly. Every dataset page shows its last-updated timestamp.
What is MCP and how do I use it?
MCP (Model Context Protocol) is an open standard that lets AI assistants connect to external data. Smart Island's MCP server exposes 89 tools — covering jobs, vehicles, property, aircraft, biosphere, marine, elections, planning, crime, and more. Connect any MCP-compatible AI assistant (Claude Desktop, Cursor, Windsurf) and ask questions like "what tech jobs are available in Douglas?" or "show me IoM vehicle emissions data".
What are AI Advisors?
7 specialist AI advisors generate weekly data-grounded intelligence reports: Careers Advisor (for job seekers), Employer Advisor (for hiring managers), Economics Advisor (macro trends), Strategy Advisor (policy), Sector Advisor (industry analysis), Weekly Summary (digest), and Biosphere Advisor (cross-domain environmental analysis). Each report is generated fresh from live platform data.
What is the AI Fluency Rubric?
Every one of 500+ occupations has an AI fluency guide showing how AI should be used at four maturity levels: Unacceptable, Capable, Adoptive, and Transformative. Each guide includes a task-level rubric matrix, candidate quick wins, tools to learn, employer interview questions, and red flags. It helps both job seekers and employers understand what good AI adoption looks like for any role.
Can I use the data commercially?
The data is published under open data licences. Government-sourced data follows the IoM Open Government Licence. Community-sourced data (OpenStreetMap) follows ODbL. Our APIs and data are free for personal, non-commercial use. Check our data sources page for licence details per dataset.
How accurate are the AI risk scores?
Risk scores (0-100%) represent exposure to AI disruption based on occupational task profiles from O*NET, the Anthropic Economic Index, and the FRS AI Occupational Exposure dataset. They indicate exposure, not prediction — many high-scoring roles will be augmented rather than replaced. Scores are cross-referenced across multiple frameworks for reliability.
Who built this?
Smart Island is built and maintained by Manx Technology Group (MTG), an Isle of Man technology company specialising in AI, IoT, cloud infrastructure, and digital transformation. The platform was built with the help of OpenAI, Google Gemini, and Anthropic Claude — practising what we preach about AI augmenting human capabilities.
Want to learn more?
Manx Technology Group runs AI workshops and consultations for Isle of Man businesses. Get in touch to find out how AI and open data can work for your organisation.