Today, in partnership with Santander, we’ve published the 2016/17 update of our manufacturing fact card. This brings together all the key data on the UK's manufacturing sector in one place.
Compared to last year’s fact card, what’s changed?
Manufacturing pay still ahead
Pay within manufacturing continues to outpace services and the whole economy average up 1.9% (2015 vs 2014) or 3% compared to 2013.
Compared to the rest of the economy this is impressive growth, with the whole economy managing 1.6% against 2013 and services just 1.4%.
The UK’s global position
We didn’t report on this last year, but the latest available data shows UK manufacturing output now ranks us 9th in the world*, up one place on the year before and overtaking Russia. This continues our steady climb back from the low of 11th in 2011 and 2012.
We aren’t that far behind France either.
Changing sectors
Compared to last year, food and drink has increased its contribution to manufacturing from 15% to 17%.
Chemicals and Pharmaceuticals is down 1%, Rubber, plastics and non-metallic minerals is up 1%, Metals, Electrical Equipment, Transport and Chemicals and Pharmaceuticals are all down 1%, Electronics and Machinery are also down 2%.
The contribution of other sectors of manufacturing is up 4% (think wood and paper products and textiles).
New data in the fact card
We’ve also changed the fact card to share more relevant data to draw meaningful comparisons. This year we’ve included:
- the top 3 manufacturing sectors in each UK region
- the top 10 export destinations for British manufactured exports and
- the number of companies that have or offer formal apprenticeships by economic sector
Take a look at the fact card and let us know what you think on Twitter.
*regular readers of our blog may remember a recent blog post which showed UK manufacturing output placed us 7th in the world. While the data came from an authoritative source (UNIDO), a recent rebase of the data from 2005 to 2010 constant US dollars not only changed our position, but changed our position historically as well. We’ve since found a more authoritative data source (UNCTAD), which is updated annually and has data stretching back to 1970. Using this date our position is 9th.