Britain has dropped out of the world’s top ten leading nations for manufacturing for the first time, it has been revealed.
The most recent rankings, for 2022, show the UK now occupies 12th place in the list, down from eighth the year before.
Analysis by Make UK shows Britain has fallen behind Mexico and Russia, which had climbed to seventh and eighth respectively in the ranking of manufacturing economies.
Manufacturing accounts for r £217 billion of the UK’s output and provides about 2.6 million jobs, but Make UK warned that the nation needed “a long-term industrial strategy” to support the industry.
Verity Davidge, director of policy at Make UK, said: “There is no getting away from the fact that it’s deeply disappointing to see the UK drop out of the world’s top ten manufacturing nations for the first time.
“However, this isn’t a reflection of any decline in UK industry but of specific factors and trends that are redrawing the contours of the global economy.”
Several commentators have pointed to the impact of Brexit on the manufacturing sector, which is weighing heavily on trade.
Post-Brexit, EU exports have reduced by nearly £27 billion and imports by nearly £8 billion, statistics show.
Uncertainty about trade agreements, tariffs, and regulatory frameworks is a significant concern for manufacturers.
Northwest England is still the largest manufacturing region of the UK, where the sector employs 330,000 people and has an output of £29.5 billion.
Writing in The Times before the general election, Paul Drechsler, a former president of the CBI, the business lobby group, said that Britain had been “held back by political U-turns, stop-start funding cycles and a total lack of consistency”.
There has been a rebound in business confidence following the General Election which has helped drive stronger activity across the UK’s private sector this month.
The S&P Global flash UK composite purchasing managers’ index (PMI) reported a reading of 52.7 in July, up from 52.3 in June.
It came in slightly above the expectations of economists who had pencilled in a reading of 52.5 for the latest survey.
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