Manufacturing News – Early October 2025
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The Midlands’ manufacturing sector has warned it is at a “crossroads” with business leaders calling on the government for urgent and co-ordinated action to protect the future of British industry.
At a roundtable sponsored and hosted by accountancy and advisory firm MHA in Birmingham, manufacturers, industry representatives and policy experts highlighted a combination of post-Brexit red tape, soaring energy costs, skills shortages and restrictive tax policies as mounting threats to competitiveness.
Industrial agility among UK manufacturers and distributors has fallen to its lowest level in five years, according to the 2025 Industrial Agility Assessment from HSO and The Manufacturer.
Indeed, just 45% of companies now describe themselves as “highly or extremely agile”, down sharply from 58% last year — a sign that industrial resilience is being tested by sustained disruption and organisational fatigue.
