LONG READ: ‘Workshop of the World’ - The Decline and Potential Resurgence of UK Manufacturing
In the nineteenth century, the UK was the ‘workshop of the world’ and, even as late as 1970, it was still one of the world’s leading manufacturing nations. Since then, the UK has moved decisively to a service-led economy and offshored much of its manufacturing base to Asia.
This process was in part necessary and undoubtedly had many benefits – from cheaper goods for consumers to increased corporate profits. Unfortunately, it also reaped a devastating, long-term toll by damaging social cohesion, fuelling political alienation and delivering a catastrophic environmental cost.
Today, things are slowly shifting. As the risks of extended global supply chains become increasingly apparent, and the need to rapidly decarbonise intensifies, the case for reshoring and supporting UK-made goods has gained a new momentum.
In this long-read, we look at the lessons of history and assess the environmental, societal and economic benefits of supporting the UK manufacturing sector today.
The End of UK Manufacturing?
In 1970, the manufacturing sector in the UK accounted for about 27% of the UK's Gross Value Added (or GVA) and in 1966 employed 8.9 million people, 30% of the national workforce (1). By 2018, it accounted for 10% of GVA (1) and employed 2.7 million or 7.7% of the workforce (2). In large part this decline was due to the explosion of the UK’s service sector over the same period, making it appear more dramatic than it actually was. Indeed in real terms UK manufacturing output in 2018 was 7% higher than in 1990 (1) due to automation and a shift to higher-value goods and today, the UK produces significantly more manufactured goods than ever before (4). Unfortunately, the manner in which the change in UK manufacturing was managed, and in particular the way it was offshored to the Far East, caused such profound impacts on its society, economy and beyond.
From the 1970s, the UK’s financial system became increasingly stock-market-driven and sensitive to short-term shareholder returns. These in turn incentivised company executives to aggressively offshore manufacturing (12). This shift was far more severe in the UK than other developed nations such as Germany and Japan which deliberately and successfully preserved a significantly larger proportion of their manufacturing bases, treating domestic manufacturing as a pillar of economic security, export strength and social stability.
The UK embraced a model that prioritised short-term (quarterly) profit reporting, whilst other Germany and Japan had banking sectors able to fund long-term industrial investment. In addition, the UK rapidly pivoted to its booming financial services, legal, educational and creative services sector, whilst other nations fiercely protected their manufacturing bases through Government-backed research, collaborative labour relations and vocational training systems. Lacking these ‘buffers’, the offshoring of UK production to Asia introduced vast, often unaccounted-for environmental and social consequences. While it also delivered short-term cost savings for corporations and lower prices for consumers, it triggered a global transfer of carbon emissions, exacerbated environmental degradation and contributed directly to the hollowing out of UK vocational skills and industrial capacity. In the UK it damaged the ecosystems that sustain manufacturing networks over generations and the concentration of industrial job losses in certain areas of the UK cast a long shadow over many UK communities, altering their social fabric, civic pride and political landscapes. In particular, the loss of manufacturing employment removed a key pillar of social mobility and community cohesion, leaving scars that persist to this day.
By contrast, in Germany, the preservation of the manufacturing sector - which currently accounts for roughly 17.81% of its GDP (6) - is heavily reliant on the Mittelstand. These are highly specialised, often family-owned and privately held medium-size businesses that often focus on high-quality, niche goods. This Mittelstand model was underpinned by exceptional vocational training, strong regional banking that provided long-term financing and finally by cooperative labour relations often lacking in the UK.
Similarly, in Japan, where manufacturing still accounts for 20.58% of GDP (7), the Keiretsu system produced connected networks of manufacturers, suppliers and distributors, anchored by a central bank and again combined with cooperative labour relations. This protected Japanese manufacturing from the short-term pressures of global stock markets and enabled long-term investments in equipment and technology (10).
The manufacturing job losses that resulted from the UK rapidly restructuring and shifting away from manufacturing were highly concentrated north of an imaginary line from the Severn estuary to the Wash (2) including the textile towns of Lancashire and West Yorkshire and the shipbuilding and heavy engineering parts of Scotland, Wales and the North East (2). When major industries contracted in these areas - often involving the closure of a single, major plant that dominated a local economy – with them went the stable, respectable and well-paid jobs that gave employment to ordinary people who lacked advanced or degree-level qualifications. In their place came temporary and zero-hour contracts and much lower wages (2). These factories has been focal points for community life and had fostering sports teams, brass bands and other clubs and associations. Their closure resulted in stagnant wages, degraded public infrastructure, loss of dignity and damage to community identity.
The Global Picture
Alongside the decline in UK manufacturing came the meteoric rise of manufacturing in Asia, particularly in China since the late 1980s. Today, nearly half of the UK's true carbon footprint is generated overseas to satisfy UK-based consumption (22). International accounting standards allocate emissions to the producing country rather than the consuming country, meaning products like fast fashion, processed foods, electronics and heavy machinery imported into the UK are counted entirely as the manufacturing country's emissions (22). Greenhouse gas emissions associated with imported goods to the UK rose by 80% between 1996 and 200723 and emissions relating to imports from China were more than four times higher than in 1996 (23). While the UK closed its factories, in effect it outsourced pollution to countries with far weaker environmental protections (24).
The carbon intensity of China's electricity generation is significantly higher than the global average at roughly 581 gCO2/kWh compared to a global average of 480 gCO2/kWh. As a consequence, producing goods in the UK today is fundamentally less carbon-intensive than producing them in China, even before adding the emissions generated by transporting the products thousands of miles across the globe to UK ports (27).
As if that were not enough, the offshoring model has relied heavily on the exploitation of weaker labour protections and lower safety standards in parts of the developing world and has fuelled an unsustainable throwaway culture. The artificial cheapness of imported goods encourages rapid consumption and disposal. Only recently, it was estimated that the UK produced over 222 million tons of waste in a single year, driven by cheap electronics, fast fashion and poorly manufactured household goods (28). The true cost of a cheap imported item includes the unemployment it causes in the UK, the carbon emitted during its overseas manufacture, the fuels burned during its transit and the impacts it has on domestic landfills.
Historically, small-scale, independent UK manufacturers couldn’t compete in markets dominated by massive offshore factories. Today though, the digital revolution and the growth of e-commerce channels, and global marketplaces offers a potential lifeline and growth engine to UK manufacturing. Firstly, marketplaces like Etsy, Folksy, Not on the High Street and Faire, have enabled a boom in UK artisan and micro-manufacturing and e-commerce channels enable UK manufacturers to bypass retailers and middle-men. By selling directly to consumers from their own websites, UK makers can keep a greater share of the profits and establish rich relationships with customers (32).
The Case for Buying UK-Made Goods
The risk of global supply chains were laid bare in the COVID-19 pandemic and in subsequent shipping crises, making reshoring a vital issue (29). In addition, for US and international sellers facing tariffs on Chinese imports, sourcing products from the UK is increasingly attractive. It is in this context that there is a renewed interest in UK manufacturing. Consumers, politicians and businesses around the world are increasingly recognising that UK manufacturing enhances product quality, longevity and repairability because of the UK’s strict UK product standards regulations, reduces pollution because of the UK’s strict environmental laws and reduces the ecologically destructive throwaway culture fostered by cheap, mass-produced imports (27).
Supporting UK manufacturing produces immediate environmental benefits. By sourcing goods locally, companies and consumers reduce the length of supply chains, virtually eliminating the emissions from freight (27). Furthermore, modern UK manufacturers are increasingly using renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar, and using sustainable, recycled materials and harnessing the UK’s rapidly greening electricity grid (26).
In addition, UK manufacturing stimulates economic benefits across the whole UK supply chain and wider economy (30). For every £1m that the manufacturing sector contributes to the UK’s GDP, an additional £1.8m is supported across the wider economy through supply chain purchases and worker spending (31). Indeed for every job created in the manufacturing sector, a further 1.8 jobs in are supported in other sectors of the UK economy (31). In 2022, this meant that the small UK manufacturing sector supported 7.3 million UK jobs nationwide and contributed £518 billion to UK GDP (31).
Finally, revitalising our industrial bases in left-behind towns offers a wonderful way to restore civic dignity, strengthen communities and build pride and, by investing in the UK, to rebuild essential community infrastructure (32) and provide high-quality, skilled and well-paid jobs in deprived regions.
The Editor, The Albion Edit
24 February 2026
Works relied upon or cited (where not stated – all last accessed on 24 February 2026)
Manufacturing: statistics and policy - UK Parliament, https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN01942/SN01942.pdf
The Long Shadow of Job Loss: Britain's Older Industrial Towns in ... https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8022818/
The Long Shadow of Job Loss: Britain's Older Industrial Towns in the 21st Century - PubMed, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33869461/
The impact of Government policies on UK manufacturing since 1945 - GOV.UK, https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a7c8b07ed915d6969f459d1/ep2-government-policy-since-1945.pdf
“The Deindustrial Revolution: The Rise And Fall Of Uk Manufacturing, 1870-2010”, Michael Kitson and Jonathan Michie WP 459 June 2014, https://www.jbs.cam.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/cbrwp459.pdf
Germany Share of manufacturing - data, chart | TheGlobalEconomy.com, https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/Germany/Share_of_manufacturing/
Share of manufacturing by country, around the world | TheGlobalEconomy.com, https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/rankings/Share_of_manufacturing/
Economy of Germany – Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Germany
Offshoring, Reshoring, and the Evolving Geography of Jobs: A Scoping Paper - O.N.E - OECD, https://one.oecd.org/document/DELSA/ELSA/WD/SEM(2024)6/en/pdf
Transition Dynamics in Vintage Capital Models: Explaining the Postwar Catch-Up of Germany and Japan https://www.federalreserve.gov/pubs/feds/2001/200107/200107pap.pdf
Manufacturing productivity and labour costs in 14 economies https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/1991/12/art4full.pdf
Globalisation, Offshoring and Economic Insecurity in Industrialised Countries https://desapublications.un.org/file/193/download
We fixate on the decline of the high street, but the real issue is Amazon - The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/aug/02/decline-high-street-amazon-power-tech-giant
Deindustrialisation and Its Impact in the US, the UK, and France | Harvard Mellon Urban Initiative https://mellonurbanism.harvard.edu/deindustrialization-and-its-impact-us-uk-and-france-0
The State of Us: Community strength and cohesion in the UK - British Future https://www.britishfuture.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/The-State-of-Us-report.15.7.25.pdf
Forging ahead or falling behind? - Devolution and the future of living standards in the Sheffield City Region - Resolution Foundation https://www.resolutionfoundation.org/app/uploads/2017/01/Sheffield2.pdf
Redundant spaces and sustainable development in post-industrial weak market cities: the cases of Kingston upon Hull and Sunderland https://theses.ncl.ac.uk/jspui/bitstream/10443/5929/1/Jones%20Ian%20120551321%20ecopy.pdf
The implications for employment of the shift to high-value manufacturing - Sheffield Hallam University Research Archive https://shura.shu.ac.uk/27045/1/implications-employment-shift-manufacturing.pdf
Divided we fall? The effect of manufacturing decline on the social ..., https://eprints.lse.ac.uk/120355/1/Journal_of_Regional_Science_2023_Diemer_Divided_we_fall_The_effect_of_manufacturing_decline_on_the_social_capital_of_1_.pdf
The Relationship between Jobs and Social Cohesion: Some examples from Ethnography https://www.gov.uk/research-for-development-outputs/the-relationship-between-jobs-and-social-cohesion-some-examples-from-ethnography
EXPLORING NEARSHORING OPPORTUNITIES IN A LOW-COST COUNTRY - Diva-Portal.org http://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:1832221/FULLTEXT01.pdf
Nearly half UK carbon footprint is from overseas emissions | University of Leeds https://www.leeds.ac.uk/news-environment/news/article/4576/nearly-half-uk-carbon-footprint-is-from-overseas-emissions
Carbon footprint for the UK and England to 2022 - GOV.UK https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/uks-carbon-footprint/carbon-footprint-for-the-uk-and-england-to-2022
Britain merely 'outsourcing' carbon emissions to China, say MPs - The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/apr/18/britain-outsourcing-carbon-emissions-china
Report-Global-Electricity-Review-2024 – Ember https://ember-energy.org/app/uploads/2024/05/Report-Global-Electricity-Review-2024.pdf
Analysis: UK's electricity was cleanest ever in 2024 - Carbon Brief https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-uks-electricity-was-cleanest-ever-in-2024/
Carbon Footprints – Real Impact of UK-Made vs. Imported Products https://www.lyteladders.co.uk/carbon-footprints-the-real-impact-of-uk-made-vs-imported-products
Global Pollution: How offshoring manufacturing impacts global CO2 emissions – SolidFish https://solid.fish/blog/16/global-pollution-how-offshoring-manufacturing-impacts-global-co2-emissions
Coming Home in the Age of Industry 4.0? The Effects of Offshoring and Backshoring on Manufacturing Companies' Success – MDPI https://www.mdpi.com/2413-4155/6/4/58
The evolution of local multipliers - What Works Growth https://whatworksgrowth.org/insights/the-evolution-of-local-multipliers/
The true impact of British Manufacturing | MTA https://www.mta.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Manufacturing-Technologies-Association-The-true-impact-of-British-Manufacturing.pdf
D2C (direct-to-consumer) e-commerce: Global market, leading players, regional trends https://ecommercegermany.com/blog/d2c-direct-to-consumer-e-commerce-global-market-leading-players-regional-trends/
