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The Manufacturing Sector Health Check
Thriving or Surviving?
Tracking the health and performance of UK manufacturing through the latest data, providing a clear picture of the trends, challenges and opportunities shaping the sector.
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How we track UK manufacturing performance
What’s happening across UK manufacturing — and how does it compare with the wider economy?
Thriving or Surviving? uses the latest ONS data to assess how UK manufacturing is performing compared with the wider UK economy. Each month, we analyse key measures to highlight where performance is changing and where challenges or opportunities are emerging.
Why we track it
Tracking these measures consistently over time helps us understand the health and resilience of UK manufacturing, identify longer-term trends and put changes in the sector into context.
What does the data tell us?
Each month, we compare the latest manufacturing data with equivalent figures for the UK as a whole, helping to put the sector's performance into context. We track five key areas:
GDP
We compare manufacturing GDP with the wider UK economy and look at how individual manufacturing subsectors are performing.
Employment and vacancies
We track changes in manufacturing employment and vacancies to understand the state of the sector's labour market and demand for skills.
Wages and payroll
We look at pay and payroll trends across manufacturing and compare them with the UK as a whole.
Exports
We monitor changes in manufacturing exports and identify the subsectors experiencing the strongest growth or decline.
Production
We examine production values across manufacturing subsectors to highlight areas of growth and areas facing challenges.
Latest release
Thriving or Surviving? The Manufacturing Sector Health Check – September 2026
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Whether you have questions about our data insights, charitable projects, or need assistance with our tools and services, our team is ready to help you.
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