Entitled “Invest 2035: the UK’s modern industrial strategy”, the paper outlines a vision for a long-term strategy that will tackle barriers to growth and drive investment in key sectors and invites businesses around the UK to share their thoughts on how government can best support long term growth and productivity in key sectors.
According to the government the strategy will be focused on driving growth on eight key sectors, which offer the highest opportunities for growth. These are: advanced manufacturing; clean energy; creative industries; defence; digital and technologies; financial services; life sciences; and professional and business services.
Announcing the launch of the paper, Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds said: “our modern Industrial Strategy will hardwire stability for investors and give industry the confidence to plan for the next 10 years and beyond”
Reynolds also announced the creation of an industrial strategy advisory council - to be led by Microsoft UK CEO Clare Barclay - which will help shape and deliver the plan. Commenting on her new role Barclay said: “our Industrial Strategy will channel support to sectors and geographical clusters that have the highest growth potential for the next decade. “
The launch of the strategy has been broadly welcomed by many industry figures who argue that carefully targeted support and intervention will be key to diving growth and productivity.
“We live in a world which is massively different to a decade ago and simply leaving the economy and, industrial strategy, to the free market is an ideology which is long past its sell by date,” said Make UK CEO Stephen Phipson.
Dr Graham Hoare, Chief Executive Officer at the Manufacturing Technology Centre (MTC), added: “The Prime Minister this morning said that the industrial strategy is ‘not about picking winners’. I believe it needs to be about creating winners. That requires the strategy to really make a difference in three areas: creating the confidence to invest; nurturing the skilled people to make it happen; and developing the infrastructure to deliver it.
The UK’s last industrial strategy was launched by Theresa May’s government in 2017 and scrapped by Boris Johnson in March 2021. The new Industrial Strategy, alongside Sector Plans for the growth-driving sectors, will be published in Spring 2025, aligned with the multi-year spending review.
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