Data published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) this morning shows that although total UK manufacturing output only grew by +0.1% in January, thanks to the recovery from the JLR cyber-attack (especially in November 2025) it grew by +1.5% in the latest 3 months compared with the previous period (August to October 2025).

This apparent strength is slightly misleading because the disrupted period (mainly September) falls below the line while the main recovery (November, although this started in October) is above the line in the trend calculation.  This will change next month and we will see a sharp turnaround when the November figures drop below the line – at the industry level, this mainly impacts the automotive industry but can also be seen to a lesser extent in metal products output (because of sub-contract activity).

This is also partly a driver of the trends at the sub-sector level where output of the capital goods industries – where most purchasers of manufacturing technology equipment can be found – in the latest 3 months (November 2025 to January 2026) was +4.8% higher than in the previous period (August to October 2025) and +4.5% up on a year earlier (November 2024 to January 2025).

The trends for our key industries, which make up the majority of the capital goods sub-sector, explain why this group has done better than manufacturing as a whole;  in the following points, we quote two trends – the first compares the latest 3 months with the previous period and the second is against the same months a year earlier (all the data in this note is seasonally adjusted):

  • In addition to the recovery from the JLR incident at the end of 2025, automotive output also grew strongly in January according to the ONS statistics;  however, this is not supported by the units-based output data from the SMMT, so a note of caution has to be placed on this data.  For the 3-month rolling trends, automotive output grew by +17.5% and declined by -5.0%, wit the latter figure more in line with the SMMT figures.
  • The machinery industry (sometimes referred to as mechanical engineering) has been the star performer recently but showed a sharp dip in January leaving 3-month trends of +0.8% and +6.6% respectively.
  • For aerospace industry, January was a good month (as was December 2025) and the 3-month trends are +0.6% and +6.9%.
  • The metal products industry is the weakest at the moment, although the short-term numbers don’t look too bad thanks to what is likely to have been an automotive induced leap among sub-contractors last November;  the 3-month trends are +0.9% and -7.1% respectively.

You can download the ONS Statistical Bulletin from their web-site at https://www.ons.gov.uk/releasecalendar (13 March) or request it from MTA;  we also have an analysis of the key industries which is available to members – please contact Martin Redhead ([email protected]) if you would like these charts.

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