The Office for National Statistics (ONS) data on manufacturing output for April shows a second consecutive month-on-month decline, this time of -0.9%, but thanks to the strong increase in February, the 3-month rolling trend showed growth of +1.1% compared to the previous period. However, manufacturing is the only sub-sector of the economy where output is still lower than before the pandemic.
In April, 8 of the 13 sub-sectors of manufacturing saw output lower than in the previous month, with the largest contribution to this trend coming from “transport equipment”; however, this followed a similarly sized increase in March and a smaller but still significant one in February, so the level of output in this sector is still higher than in January on a seasonally adjusted basis. The ONS notes that this is largely down to the automotive industry where the SMMT data tells a similar story, with April’s output hit by a combination of factors including model changeovers and lower demand in key export markets (with the US tariffs a part of this picture).
In the rest of this note, we will use the 3-month rolling trends as they take out some of the noise in the monthly data. References to these periods will cover February to April 2025 as the latest 3 months, November 2024 to January 2025 as the previous period and “last year” is February to April 2024.
At the sub-sector level, despite a sharp fall in April, output of the capital (or investment) goods industries was +2.3% higher than in the previous 3 months and +1.7% above the level of last year.
Among our 4 key industries, only metal products recorded a reduction in output with the index -3.3% lower than in the previous period and -3.8% down on a year earlier.
The most positive sector is machinery (sometimes referred to as mechanical engineering) where output grew by +3.2% compared to the previous 3 months and was +5.1% higher than last year. In this context, it is worth noting a slightly odd pattern in the monthly series for this industry where output has been growing consistently on a month-on-month basis apart from negative trends at 3-month intervals, with the April 2025 data being the latest example (following January 2025 and October 2024). This suggests that there may be an issue with the seasonal adjustment for this industry.
The two elements of “transport equipment” that we focus on – the automotive and aerospace industries – recorded increases in output compared to the previous period of +3.7% and +2.5% respectively; however, output was lower than last year with respective falls of -4.7% and -0.7% being registered.
You can download the ONS Statistical Bulletin from their web-site at https://www.ons.gov.uk/releasecalendar (12 June) or request it from MTA; we also have an analysis of the key industries which is available to members – please contact Geoff Noon ([email protected]) if you would like these charts.