British manufacturing is surging post-Brexit
A Sheffield Hallam University survey in September revealed something amazing. When asked where they thought Britain ranked in the league table of the globe’s biggest manufacturing countries, Britons on average said we came in at a lowly 43rd. Fortunately, the reality is much rosier. Indeed, the UK is now the eighth biggest manufacturing nation in the world. This means we manufacture more goods in Britain than 24 of the 27 countries in the EU including France.
As manufacturers, we have been told for years that Brexit will destroy our sector. In 2018 a paper by the UK Trade Policy Observatory forecasted that leaving the EU could see manufacturing exports slashed by a third. In the same year, The Observer newspaper claimed one in five British manufacturing companies were expected to lay off workers because of our collective decision to leave the EU. And as I drove to my factory listening to the radio in 2016, ‘expert’ contributors to the Today Programme frequently told me I could be out of business by the end of the year.
Fortunately for all of us who employ people to make and ship things around the world, the exact opposite has proven to be the case. Manufacturing employment is growing in 75 per cent of English regions and in the whole of Wales. The forecasted drop in exports to the EU just hasn’t happened. In fact, the UK’s overall share of manufacturing exports to the EU increased in 2022 to 52 per cent from 50 per cent in 2019. My own company has been exporting for the last 157 years but has never done very much in Europe. Post-Brexit, thanks to us onshoring production back into our own factory, we are now selling more than ever into the bloc.
And crucially, Britain’s makers are doing more export business with countries beyond the confines of the EU than ever before. UK automotive shipments to the US increased by some 36 per cent and more than tripled to Australia last year. In life sciences, UK exports of medical technology products have increased every single year since the Brexit vote in 2016.
In my own business, we now ship high-tech fluid control equipment to more than 85 countries. We are getting new business enquires from companies keen to benefit from the high standards of quality and environmental performance UK-manufactured products can offer. And we are finding that our customers like the positive ethical connotations of buying products from a market with standards as exacting as ours.
The experience of Brexit has shown commentators who talk down British manufacturing do so at their peril. Our sector is considerably more resilient, forward-thinking, and capable of adapting to profound change than it is given credit for. So often when Britain leads the way, our international competitors follow. And as the post-Brexit international trade environment increasingly opens for Britain’s makers, there are many reasons for real optimism.
David Millar is Chief Executive of Heap & Partners.
