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The manufacturing industry over the past two decades has seen its fair share of issues. The recession back in 2008 had a huge impact, as did the coronavirus-enforced lockdowns in 2020. But, thankfully, the UK’s manufacturing industry is stronger than ever and was worth around £191 billion in 2019, placing it within the global top 10.
Different sectors performed better
Even though the manufacturing industry has performed well over the past decade, fortunes have differed across sectors.
The manufacturing of food products is one of the areas that has seen growth, with it increasing by 4.4% between 2008 to 2018. The manufacturing of motor vehicles has also increased.
But areas such as pharmaceutical, printing and recorded media, and machinery have gone the other way and seen contractions in their importance.
Since the recession, the performance of manufacturing has been significantly reliant on four specific industries: food, motor vehicles, other transport equipment, and repair of machinery. These specific industries account for just short of a third of the sector’s overall performance, showing how much some areas are struggling to maintain steady growth and are instead declining.
What influences the market?
There are a huge number of external variables that can impact the manufacturing industry. This could be anything from unpredictable events like the recent pandemic to things such as political decision-making and even forex trading, which could affect the exchange rate of a country.
Forex trading, whether it’s through tools such as MT4 for Mac or PC or without them, can have an impact on the performance of certain business sectors by making their exports more expensive to foreign buyers, for example.
Look at futureproofing your business
As a manufacturing business, you must plan for the future so you can limit the influence of any potential impacts that hit the sector. Futureproofing can be the difference between a business succeeding and failing.
Businesses of all sizes at some point in their lives will go through rough patches, but if you plan appropriately it can improve your chances of getting through the difficult times in the best shape possible.
The manufacturing sector has had an interesting run in the past decade, with some areas performing incredibly well and others struggling to get any growth whatsoever. But the UK’s performance has improved overall and enabled it to retain its place among the world’s top manufacturing producers.
David Prior
David Prior is the editor of Today News, responsible for the overall editorial strategy. He is an NCTJ-qualified journalist with over 20 years’ experience, and is also editor of the award-winning hyperlocal news title Altrincham Today. His LinkedIn profile is here.
