UK Engineering & Manufacturing – Can We Halt The Decline?

Howard Wheeldon FRAeS – Wheeldon Strategic Advisory Ltd 

In the previous edition of ‘Business Influencer’ I delved into the dramatic changes that had occurred to UK engineering and manufacturing during the ‘Elizabethan Age’. In this second piece I will look at where we are now in 2023, some of the current failings, reasons and also, opportunities for our remaining specialist engineering and manufacturing sector businesses.

I will also ask the question of whether, in the post Brexit world, we need a more vibrant manufacturing sector; whether in the consumer led world that we now appear to thrive in, we need to even think about reducing imports and manufacturing more of what we consume here at home or close our eyes and tell ourselves, there is nothing wrong with the status quo!

In my own formative business years in Birmingham during the early 1970’s I recall there being two particular sets of monthly or quarterly economic statistics that mattered and that we took noti...