You could read all 240 pages of the UK Manufacturing Review 2017/2018. Or, you could read this handy summary courtesy of Zenoot which will take around 5 minutes.
Overall, it's a positive outlook and Zenoot have focussed in on several key points such as manufacturing output, investment, Brexit and how the currency fluctuations we are seeing have had an impact.
Encouragingly the Markit/CIPS manufacturing PMI (an indicator of the economic health of the manufacturing sector looking at five major indicators including new orders, inventory levels, production, supplier deliveries and the employment environment) peaked at 58.2 in November 2017 and remained over 50 (positive) throughout 2017.
Of course, challenges for the sector still remain, and the report highlights that Automotive saw a decline in production for a large part of 2017. And the Apprenticeship Levy which was launched back in April didn't exactly get off to a flying start with a reduction of apprenticeship starts in manufacturing and engineering reported at nearly 6% compared to the previous year.
If you've got 5 minutes to spare and would like to read more about the highlights from the report please take a look at the Zenoot article below. And if you're hungry for more, a link to the full UK Manufacturing Review 2017/2018 report is also available.
The sector had a bumper 2017, with growth in every quarter recorded for the first time in a decade. Falling apprenticeship starts and brewing recruitment crises from the excess demand of a high volume of factory investments and falling foreign labour supply induced by Brexit are big challenges for parts of manufacturing in 2018 and beyond.
https://zenoot.com/articles/uk-manufacturing-review-of-2017-forecast-for-2018/
