2025 up 47 percent Positive year for UK subcontract market

The UK subcontract manufacturing market saw a sharp rebound in 2025, rising 47 percent compared with the previous year, according to Qimtek’s latest Contract Manufacturing Index.

The UK subcontract manufacturing market had a positive year in 2025, up 47 percent on 2024, according to the latest Contract Manufacturing Index (CMI) figures. The automotive sector was the largest customer and accounted for nearly a third of the market. It was a strong contributor to the health of the market despite the effects of the JLR cyber-attack.

A combination of uncertainty around ongoing effect on supply chains and concerns about the budget meant that buyers remained cautious and were careful about which jobs they wanted to take on.

The CMI is produced by sourcing specialist Qimtek and reflects the total purchasing budget for outsourced manufacturing of companies looking to place business in any given month. This represents a sample of over 4,000 companies who could be placing business that together have a purchasing budget of more than 3.4 billion pounds and a supplier base of over 7,000 companies with a verified turnover in excess of 25 billion pounds.

The baseline for the index is 100, which represents the average size of the subcontract manufacturing market between 2014 and 2018.

Overall, the average CMI for 2025 was 87 compared to an average of 59 for 2024.

The CMI for the fourth quarter was 69. Although this was lower than the average for the year it was 64 percent higher than the fourth quarter of 2024.

2025 started strongly, bouncing back to be 50 percent higher at the end of the first quarter than it had been during the tail end of the previous year. That said, the market slowed during the first quarter as companies assessed the impact of forthcoming increases in National Insurance contributions and the Minimum Wage.

Overcoming these setbacks, the market leapt ahead in the second quarter as large buyers returned with new projects.

This strong growth continued in July and August, but there was a sharp slowdown in September as the effects of the JLR cyber-attack disrupted supply chains and created hesitancy regarding the placing of new orders.

By October, the market was pushing strongly forward again but tailed off towards the end of the year in what seems to be a regular seasonal pattern.

As previously mentioned, Automotive was the strongest sector, representing 31 percent of the market. This strength came from its performance in the first eight months of the year. For the final quarter it was topped by Industrial Machinery which accounted for 22 percent of the market across the year. Heavy Vehicles/Construction Equipment was the third largest sector on 11 percent followed by Consumer Products and Marine both on 9 percent.

On a process-by-process basis, fabrication represented 48 percent of the market and machining 43 percent of the market.

Commenting on the figures, Qimtek owner Karl Wigart said: “It was quite clear that it was a better year overall than 2024. Activity by buyers has been steady and we broke the record for the number of parts being quoted – just under 20 million parts for the year. However, we feel that suppliers are being cautious. They were badly affected by the uncertainty of the very late budget and the shutdown of JLR. They are fussy on which jobs they are quoting for and careful with how they are spending their money.”

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