A blueprint to transform UK manufacturing
Katherine Bennett CBE, CEO, High Value Manufacturing Catapult
| High Value Manufacturing Catapult
Conference season should open the eyes of new MPs to the importance of UK industry.
121 Conservative MPs head to Birmingham this weekend after 404 Labour colleagues spent the week in Liverpool.
Once again, conference season takes our political leaders to the heart of UK industry. Whether it is the aerospace manufacturers of the North West or the automotive powerhouse of the West Midlands, MPs should come away from their conferences with a true sense of manufacturing’s importance to the UK.
Labour and the Conservatives are not alone. The Scottish National Party and Liberal Democrats descended on Edinburgh and Brighton respectively: one a former distilling centre now brewing scientific research, the other a booming digital technology hub.
For a record 335 MPs, this year’s conference season will be their first as members of the House of Commons. A lot will be new to them. One surprise might be manufacturing’s value across the UK - not only for our economy but the way it creates jobs, drives prosperity and transforms entire communities.
Figures published over the summer by the manufacturers’ organisation Make UK showed the sector contributed £217bn in output to the British economy last year, supporting 2.6m jobs. Its latest annual study, ‘UK Manufacturing: The Facts’, revealed manufacturing jobs are better paid than most.
An Oxford Economics report, ‘The true impact of UK Manufacturing’, released in the spring suggested the sector’s impact on the UK economy “extends far more widely than manufacturing companies themselves”. And this month’s S&P Global UK Services Purchasing Managers Index for manufacturing showed output in British factories expanded faster in August than in any other developed market.
In short, manufacturing is far from in decline.
The High Value Manufacturing Catapult’s centres have grown up around key manufacturing clusters. Established by and working in partnership with Innovate UK, we are a strategic research and innovation hub for industry, solving the world’s toughest engineering challenges. We create an environment for business to attract inward investment and compete on a global stage.
In Rotherham, the University of Sheffield Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre has spurred the 150-acre Advanced Manufacturing Park on a site which was once home to the Orgreave colliery and coking plant. An area that witnessed the most bitter clashes of the miners’ strike has now attracted £260m of investment from the likes of Boeing, McLaren and Rolls-Royce, resulting in over 500 jobs.
WMG and the Manufacturing Technology Centre (MTC) are driving industrial transformation in the West Midlands. WMG has expanded into a network of 10 facilities at the heart of the University of Warwick, while in just over a decade the MTC has turned a former airfield site in Coventry into a magnet for clustered regional direct investment.
The National Manufacturing Institute Scotland, in Renfrewshire, is a Scottish industrial powerhouse with a growing network of world-class manufacturing R&D facilities leading the creation of Scotland’s first major advanced manufacturing park.
The National Composites Centre (NCC) is a strategic national asset in the West of England, building the UK’s sovereign capability in aircraft structures and leading digital innovation. The NCC is currently home to over 450 expert engineers with an additional 200 composite engineers at the Bristol Composites Institute, University of Bristol.
CPI has had a major impact in North East England, advancing the national capability for advanced vaccine development and being a catalyst in turning NETPark from a brownfield site to a thriving industrial hub delivering £72m of R&D activities.
They are the blueprint for how to stimulate economic activity and transform entire landscapes.
Looking forward, our network is working together to accelerate industrial transformation so the UK can drive sustainable growth, secure high-value jobs, build national resilience and deliver net-zero.
The green transition presents a once-in-a-generation opportunity to secure new growth industries. Looking at Denmark, we see how recognising early competitive advantage in wind power allowed its government to reap the benefits of a domestically focused supply chain.
Similar opportunities exist for the UK today, taking advantage of our national resources in areas such as wind, electrification, hydrogen and nuclear. To grasp them, we must encourage the development of the right technologies, capabilities and processes with a complementary programme for public and private investment to support scale-up.
This will not be possible without a comprehensive, long-term skills plan that ensures the UK has the workforce it needs to capitalise on new technologies to meet those net-zero ambitions. The manufacturing workforce of the future must be ready to use AI and virtual reality as easily as lathes and grinding machines.
Conference hosts Liverpool and the West Midlands boast proud and powerful metro mayors. As increased spending powers are devolved to cities and regions, we must ensure national and local initiatives join up to deliver maximum impact.
When related and supporting industries are located near each other, the exchange of ideas and knowledge becomes more feasible and natural. This inspires collaboration, knowledge sharing and skills development, and enhances the chances of innovation through shared research and development activities.
Clusters foster innovation and as we have seen with the growth driven by our centres, the results can be transformational.
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