News Annual Buyers’ Guide 2026 www.pwemag.co.uk Plant & Works Engineering | 07 As we leave 2025 and usher in a New Year, as the saying goes ‘there’s some good news and some bad news’. The last twelve months have seen yet another tumultuous period where the resilience that is now hard wired into manufacturing as a sector was fully on display again. Domestically there have been the challenges from energy bills that remain eye wateringly high for many businesses, while the full impact of the increase in National Insurance Contributions was felt for the first time. If that were not enough, overseas they have had to cope with an erratic US President flip flopping from one decision on tariffs to the next. Yet, despite all of that, Make UK’s final two quarterly surveys of the year showed a fairly positive picture, with the forward looking indicators for the first quarter of 2026 looking especially strong. Looking forward to 2026, each year Make UK publishes a survey of Senior Executives in conjunction with PWC. The standout positive from the 2026 Survey to be published in January shows manufacturers believe the introduction of an industrial strategy will have the biggest impact on their growth prospects. As well as the benefits from an industrial strategy, the survey shows that, despite the current challenges from escalating costs and a potential trade war, a majority of manufacturers believe that overall, the UK remains a competitive place in which to manufacture. It also shows expanding into new markets, developing new products and digital technologies and AI are the focus of their investments. However, the survey shows signs the escalating costs manufacturers are facing, especially employment and energy costs, are threatening a tipping point whereby the UK will see investment plans cancelled or, shifted overseas as a result. In response, Make UK is now urging Government to speed up the pace of delivery on industrial strategy, as well as bringing forward the much vaunted business energy support scheme as the current proposed introduction in 2027 is too late. Make UK is also campaigning for the scheme to be expanded right across the sector so the broadest possible number of companies are covered. Despite these challenges, manufacturers have demonstrated their resilience over and over again in recent years and, those that remain innovative and are prepared to invest in new technologies and products, expanding their markets and, most crucially, invest in their people will continue to thrive. By MAKE UK chief executive, Stephen Phipson MAKE uk - the manufacturers’ organisation monthly news comment a single incident could result in losses of up to £49 million – equivalent to powering 3900 factories for a week. While the frequency and duration of downtime are similar across the three countries surveyed, the cost impact is notably higher in the UK and Germany. In both markets, a single incident can cost up to £49 million, compared with a global average of £1.27 million per hour and £31.9 million per incident. The research indicates that downtime is a global operational challenge and a board-level risk to profitability and resilience. However, it also suggests that UK manufacturers face significantly higher costs than their US counterparts, pointing to what Fluke calls a critical gap in Europe’s industrial resilience. The problem is particularly acute among large enterprises. Globally, 40% of organisations with more than 50,000 employees reported experiencing between 11 and 20 downtime incidents each week, and half said these incidents lasted up to 72 hours. Despite the scale of the issue, Fluke’s findings show that the manufacturing sector’s response remains fragmented. UK manufacturers are distributing digital investments across several technologies aimed at improving resilience, including predictive maintenance (12%), digital twins (12%), and condition monitoring (13%). Parker Burke, Group President at Fluke, said: “Our research paints a sobering picture: manufacturers are caught in a cycle where downtime eats directly into competitiveness, and too many are stuck with fragmented fixes. “The data makes clear that the frequency, duration, and cost of downtime expose systemic vulnerabilities in maintenance and reliability strategies. What once was viewed as an operational inconvenience has become a risk to enterprise value. Without a clear path to scale digital investments, manufacturers’ efforts risk being spread too thin to deliver meaningful resilience or return.” He added: “The findings underscore the urgent need for manufacturers to rethink reliability not as a maintenance issue, but as a boardroom priority critical to growth, competitiveness, and customer trust.”
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