The manufacturing sector relies heavily on machinery to create the many and varied products it offers to customers in the industry. In this article, we take a closer look at the manufacturing of machinery in the UK.
The key statistics:
- The UK’s ‘machinery manufacturing’ sector is the fastest growing in Europe, followed by Bulgaria and Romania
- The revenue of the machinery manufacturing industry is expected to increase by 9.2% p.a. from 2020 to 2025:
- 2020 – £30.6bn
- 2021 – £34.7bn
- 2022 – £39.4bn
- 2023 – £45.7bn
- 2024 – £46.6bn
- 2025 – £47.7bn
- There are 7,500 firms in the sector
- The total revenue of the sector is £35 billion, making it number 19 on the list of industries with the highest income. This places it ahead of pharmaceutical manufacturing (21), computers and electronics (24), and plastics and rubber (25). However, it is still behind food manufacturing (8), automotive manufacturing (13) and chemicals manufacturing (17)
- There are 225,000 people employed in the sector
- The average hours worked per week is 37.2 hours
- The average wage for men is £40,800 and for women, it is £33,200. This shows a discrepancy of 18.6%
In the main, the manufacturing machinery industry experiences a negative trade balance each year of anywhere between 2% to 6%. What this means is that the UK imports more than it exports, but not by much.
Our machinery exports go primarily to non-EU countries, although the European Union still makes up a large percentage of our overseas market:
- European Union: £14bn
- Rest of the world: £18bn
In general, the number of firms in the machinery manufacturing sector has decreased very slightly, from 8,140 in 2012 to less than 7,500 today. Each year, more firms are ‘born’ than ‘die’, but by a relatively negligible margin.
Despite the many reports about the decline in UK manufacturing, this is not borne out by the employee numbers. This has been on the increase in recent years as the sector has once again come to prominence. Today, there are over 200,000 people employed in the sector with 14% being women and 86% being men. Full-time jobs make up 95.1% of the roles with the remainder being part-time positions.
At 37.1 hours per week, working hours in the industry are above the private sector level of 32.4.
Looking at wages, women earn, on average 18.6% less than men; this difference is especially marked for those in production management and directorship roles.
For more information, please visit closeassetfinance.co.uk/manufacturing
