Improved costs and boosted productivity is placing the UK back at the top spot for manufacturing, ahead of many Eastern European countries including Czech Republic and Poland.

One of the world’s biggest consultancy groups, Boston Consulting Group (BCG) is championing the UK as strong global manufacturing hub and offers some of the lowest production costs throughout Western Europe. 

Direct manufacturing costs have shown a an improvement of 10 percentage points when compared with other Western European countries thanks to improvements over the last decade.

Wage costs

Defined as the amount companies are required to pay for an extra unit of work, wage costs in the UK have risen by 16pc over the past 10 years. Wage costs have increased by only 52pc in France and 62pc in Italy over the same timeframe. 

On account of these positive developments, the BCG are categorising the UK with other countries including the Netherlands, Indonesia and India as “regional rising stars” and are also pointing towards the UK’s low corporate tax rates and flexible labour market as significant competitive factors. 

Sukand Ramachandran, BSG partner , said:

“Perceptions are changing in the global industries.

“There is a growing realisation that, all other things being equal, it may be more effective to manufacture your goods close to your customers. That trend has been apparent in the US for about a year and a half and we’re now starting to see it in Europe too.”

Source: The Telegraph

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