What does manufacturing mean to Britain today? Britain's great economic story of the last decade has been the global ascendancy of our finance sector. Yet with the credit crisis exposing our overdependence on financial services and huge new markets emerging across the developing world, manufacturing has been pushed—rather to its surprise—to centre stage.
Today, British manufacturing is much more than the faded vestiges of the industrial revolution. The Office of National Statistics defines a manufacturing business as a company that earns more than half of its revenue from making things. By this count, there are now around 130,000 manufacturing businesses in Britain, employing around 3m people and generating 50 per cent of all exports. Yet this is probably a conservative estimate: a more liberal view of the range of production and service activities that constitute modern British manufacturing might include as many as 6m workers. Even at its peak, finance generated only £42bn of exports and represented just 8 per cent of GDP, versus manufacturing's current £178bn and 14 per cent.
With exquisite timing, this month's Prospect includes a free 20-page supplement on British manufacturing, including analyses by Michael Prest and Will Hutton, profiles of four cities, and interviews with the minister and shadow minister for business.
You can download a full, free pdf copy of the supplementhere.
