Industrial strategy set to trigger reshoring - survey

In total, 70 per cent of the 209 companies surveyed believe that the re-shoring of production back to the UK will accelerate in response to an industrial strategy, with three per cent saying it would make no difference to prospects for reshoring.

These findings are among a range of forecast benefits from such a strategy, including greater investment in UK facilities, increased investment in automation and R&D, plus as a renewed push to increase exports to the EU.

In a statement, Fhaheen Khan, senior economist at Make UK, said: “Manufacturers are ready to unleash the benefits to investment from a long-awaited industrial strategy. It’s clear that this will bring a wide range of benefits and aid companies who are accelerating their moves into greater use of automation and digital technologies, with increased recruitment of higher-level skills.

“Given the US, Europe and China are moving at pace with plans to boost investment in green technologies in particular, the UK needs to match these efforts step for step.”