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Don't dismiss the UK
21 Feb 2008
Forget what you hear from nay-sayers crying into their beer about UK manufacturing being dead writes John Collins of the MTA. It is not true; far from it. When asked where we rank in manufacturing output in the world, leading journalists from the FT perceived us to be somewhere between 34th –36th: Rubbish – we’re 6th in the world, about the same size as France, behind the USA, Japan, Germany and China.
Manufacturing represents a very important, strategic wealth generating element of the UK economy, forming more than 15% of GDP and 55% of exports: 9% of this is due directly to the mechanical engineering sector, which has been outperforming the UK economy for several years. Compare this against the contribution of just 3% from agriculture, which has diminished from the 50% contribution 50 years ago but produces far more than even a greedy UK can use.
In fact, if you broaden the definition of manufacturing to include industrial services, oil and gas, and construction, UK engineering-based manufacturing represents nearly 27% of the UK economy. Output is about 20% higher than it was 25 years ago and now employs more than 3million people, about a million less than 25 years ago. Value added per pound is fifth highest in the world its still as economic to produce high value-added goods here as it is anywhere in Europe and better than most places in the world. Thats because its not just wages that count, its productivity and thats making us more competitive on a global basis. The term high value manufacturing can be applied to pretty-much all thats produced in the UK nowadays. We have evolved from a mass-production nation into a lean managed, agile high-value manufacturing economy.
A great example of this is our steel industry: Sheffield and Rotherham alone produced 13 million tonnes of stainless steels in 2007 more than the whole of the UK output of steels during our manufacturing height 60 years ago!
Were really good in the niche sectors and niche doesnt necessarily mean small: aerospace is a good niche for us and worth about £26billion to the UK GDP (were second largest aerospace industry in the world); motorsports around £6 billion (were the world leader); medical devices and technology around £6billion (we have a 25% global market share); space and satellite technology were the largest manufacturer in Europe in an industry worth £2billion to the UK GDP.
There are many more examples, perhaps the best of which is the UK automotive sector; next time someone bemoans the demise of the UK automotive industry, just tell them that in 2007 the UK made more than 1.7million vehicles and the core manufacturing, distribution and services employed 200,000 people directly, 580,000 workers in related industry and contributed a staggering £200 billion to the UK economy: in fact, an industry thats thriving like never before because we use advanced engineering to manufacture high added-value goods.
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