Manufacturing News – Early August 2025
Estimated reading time 2 minutes
The subcontract manufacturing market leapt ahead in the second quarter of 2025 as large buyers returned to the market with new projects. The signs are that there are more to come.
The latest Contract Manufacturing Index (CMI) shows that the subcontract market was up 61% on the previous quarter, which was itself 50% up on the final quarter of 2024.
The CMI is produced by sourcing specialist Qimtek and reflects the total purchasing budget for outsourced manufacturing companies looking to place business in any given month. This represents a sample of over 4,000 companies who could be placing business that together have a purchasing budget of more than £3.4bn and a supplier base of over 7,000 companies with a verified turnover in excess of £25bn.
Hopefully this growth will continue in the next quarter.”
Specialist valve manufacturer Rotork today launched the latest £10m tranche of its share buyback 24 hours after saying a strong balance sheet at the half-year stage put it in a position to make the move.
Earlier this year the Bath-headquartered group, which designs and makes high-quality flow control equipment for the global oil, gas, water and power industries, returned around £50m to shareholders across three tranches of its buyback programme. https://www.thebusinessdesk.com/south-west/news/26397-another-10m-to-be-returned-to-rotork-investors-in-firms-latest-buyback
