Qimtek operates a clearing house for contract manufacturing and their Contract Manufacturing Index (CMI) tracks the purchasing budget of companies that are looking to outsource manufacturing work. There is a mix of trends to start 2026 with business down on the final quarter of last year but still significantly higher than in the same period at the beginning of 2025.
The overall CMI averaged 75 during Q1-2026; this is -34% lower than in the previous quarter but is still +78% higher than in the 1st quarter of last year. Over the course of the latest period, Qimtek monitored 297 projects from 219 buyers, generating a total outsourcing value of around £96 million.
The CMI is divided into three sections, the largest of which is usually machining; however, in the 1st quarter of 2026, this section accounted for 45% of the total value of the projects. Activity in this section was -26% down on the previous quarter but +69% higher than a year earlier.
Thanks to strong growth at the start of 2026, mainly in comparison to a year earlier, fabrication accounted for 47% of the projects in this period. This group saw a fall in activity of -42% on the previous quarter but was +90% higher than a year earlier.
“Other” processes accounted for the remaining 8% of projects in the final quarter; the index for this section was -28% lower than the previous quarter but +46% up on Q1-2025.
In the 1st quarter of 2026, Industrial Machinery moved back to being the top sector, accounting for 34% of the total project count; this was followed by Construction (25%) and Heavy Vehicles & Construction Equipment (+10%). There was a noticeable decline in quotations for the Automotive industry which covered only 6% of the projects in the latest quarter.
You can get more details on this report from the Qimtek website at https://www.qimtek.co.uk/blog/qimtek-contract-manufacturing-index-quarter-1-2026.