Britain invented industrial manufacturing and now derives about 9% of its output from it. That figure understates things: the UK is still among the world’s ten largest manufacturers by value, and it makes a small number of things exceptionally well.
What Britain still makes
- Aerospace — the second largest aerospace industry in the world after the United States. Airbus builds the wings for its entire commercial range at Broughton in North Wales; Rolls-Royce in Derby is one of only three manufacturers on earth making large civil jet engines.
- Pharmaceuticals — AstraZeneca and GSK are among the largest drug companies in the world, and both are headquartered in Britain.
- Cars — around 900,000 vehicles a year, plus a much larger number of engines. Almost all volume production is foreign-owned: Nissan in Sunderland, Toyota in Derbyshire, BMW building the Mini at Cowley, and Jaguar Land Rover owned by Tata of India.
- Defence — BAE Systems is one of the largest defence contractors in the world, building submarines at Barrow and combat aircraft at Warton.
- Food and drink — the largest manufacturing sector by employment, and a major exporter of Scotch whisky, salmon, cheese and biscuits.
- Chemicals, specialist steel, satellites and semiconductor design — Arm, whose chip architecture is in almost every smartphone on earth, is a Cambridge company.
What was lost
The decline was concentrated and fast. Between roughly 1960 and 1990, Britain largely ceased to be a coal, steel, shipbuilding and textile nation:
- Coal — over a million miners in 1920; the last deep pit closed in 2015. See coal mining.
- Shipbuilding — the Clyde, the Tyne and Belfast built a large share of the world’s ships in 1900. Almost all commercial building has gone.
- Textiles — the mills of Lancashire and Yorkshire that clothed the world.
- Volume car manufacturing under British ownership — British Leyland’s collapse ended it.
The effects are still visible and still political. The regions built on those industries have never fully recovered, and the geography of British discontent — including in the Brexit vote — maps closely onto them.
The miners’ strike
The most bitter episode of the whole process. The 1984-85 strike over pit closures lasted a year, split communities, and ended in total defeat for the National Union of Mineworkers. It is remembered in former coalfields with a rawness that surprises outsiders forty years on, and it remains one of the most divisive events in modern British history.
Where it stands now
British manufacturing is smaller, more automated, more specialised and considerably more productive per worker than it was. It is also unusually exposed to trade friction, since aerospace and automotive supply chains cross borders repeatedly — which is why post-Brexit customs arrangements matter more to these industries than to almost any other part of the economy.