Figures published this morning by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show that manufacturing output increased by +2.2% in February, with a more modest growth rate of +0.7% for the latest 3-month period thanks in part to a fall of -1.0% in January. Output increased in 10 of the 13 sub-sectors in the manufacturing sector.
The volatility of the monthly data is illustrated by the largest contributor to the growth in February; this came from the “manufacturing of computer, electronic & optical products” which expanded by +9.8% following two consecutive falls of -0.7% in January 2025 and -3.7% in December. There was also strong growth (+4.4%) in the “manufacture of basic pharmaceutical products & pharmaceutical preparations” which bounced back from a decline of -3.4% in January.
In our look at the key industries for suppliers of manufacturing technology, we will focus on the rolling 3-month periods; in this, the latest 3 months is December 2024 and January and February 2025, with September, October and November 2024 being the previous period and December 2023 and January and February 2024 making up the “a year ago” block.
At the sub-sector level, the capital (or investment) goods industries saw output grow by +0.7% compared to the previous period, but it was still -0.6% lower than a year ago.
This relatively modest improvement hides a wider variation in fortunes for the 4 key industries that we track each month. The star performer at the moment is the machinery industry where output expanded by +5.1% compared to the previous 3-month block and was +3.8% higher than a year earlier. There is, however, a note of caution here in that the data revisions which go back to January 2023 in this release, have significantly lifted the performance of this industry over the past couple of years.
We see a similar effect for the aerospace industry where output in the latest three months rose by +1.4%, although this still leaves it -3.7% lower than a year earlier – the upward revision for this industry only goes back to last summer, with downward amendments to the months before June 2024.
The other industries that we cover have also seen revisions to levels of output but with less dramatic effects on the trends. The new data for the automotive industry shows that output fell by -2.4% in the latest three months (despite growth of +2.5% in February) and was -8.6% down on the same months a year earlier. For metal products, the output trends were -0.9% and -1.6% respectively although, again, there was a significantly better month in February with output increasing by +2.0%.
You can download the ONS Statistical Bulletin from their web-site at https://www.ons.gov.uk/releasecalendar (11 April) 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.