Interview: Renishaw CEO Will Lee

Despite occasional perceptions to the contrary, the UK remains a major player on the global manufacturing stage, a fact underscored by the presence of many of industry’s biggest names. And yet, when compared to other major industrialised economies, it’s often noted that despite the household names, bona-fide homegrown manufacturing giants are a little thin on the ground.

There are of course some exceptions to this. And one of the most striking of these is Gloucestershire firm Renishaw, which celebrated its 50th anniversary earlier this summer.

Renishaw’s backstory is often held up as an all-too-rare tale of homegrown innovation flourishing into a domestic success story. Founded in 1973 by Sir David McMurtry and John Deer to commercialise a touch trigger probe invented by McMurtry whilst working on Concorde’s engines at Rolls-Royce, the company has grown to become one of the world’s leading manufacturing technology firms: establishing a portfolio of products spanning industrial metrology, automation, additive manufacturing, materials analysis and even neurosurgery.