The UK's Modern Industrial Strategy

Abstract:

The United Kingdom is a thriving global economy founded on stability, fairness, and the rule of law, and propelled by world-leading sectors and companies. We have a record of extraordinary research and innovation; we are champions of openness and free trade; and we continue to be a magnet for international talent and capital.

Yet in recent decades the pace and magnitude of global change have escalated and the UK has been short of the dynamism it takes to stay ahead. The global trading environment has become more unpredictable, the fragility of global supply chains more apparent, and our economic competitors have been more assertive and disruptive in promoting their national industries. British workers and families have paid the price through a cost-of-living crisis.

Now more than ever, businesses are seeking out countries that can provide them with the confidence to invest and grow. As set out in the Plan for Change, the Government's priority mission is to deliver strong, secure, and sustainable economic growth to boost living standards for working people in every part of the UK.

Our modern Industrial Strategy will help us seize the most significant opportunities and create the most favourable conditions in key UK sectors for the companies of the future to emerge here - the ones that have a transformative role to play in the clean energy transition, the tech revolution, the fundamental impact of AI on every sector, and the new geopolitics.

To achieve this, the Government is focused on the critical need to increase business investment, capturing a greater share of internationally mobile capital, spurring domestic businesses to scale up, and supporting small and medium-sized businesses reliant on resilient supply-chains. This is about positive choices: backing eight sectors (the IS-8) with the highest potential, and the frontier industries at their leading edge - and targeting the places and clusters across the UK that support those sectors, to increase national productivity, strengthen our economic security and resilience, and support our environmental goals and the net zero transition.

To ensure the Industrial Strategy drives action we will track key measures of improvement across the whole economy, the IS-8, and places: business investment, Gross Value Added (GVA), labour market outcomes such as employment and wages; productivity growth; and exports. We will also track the number of new large homegrown' business across the IS-8. The Industrial Strategy and Sector Plans are underpinned by a robust monitoring and evaluation approach tracking the delivery of its policies, overseen by the Industrial Strategy Advisory Council (ISAC).

Invest 2035, our consultation, showed clearly where action must be taken, and how we need to shape the most globally competitive offer to business. The Industrial Strategy is not about a particular point in time or publication - it is a 10-year commitment and partnership. The Government has already started to take action on the issues raised by the eight sectors - from addressing the burden of regulation to the speed of planning - and we will go further in the critical areas identified, both immediately and in the months and years ahead.

Publication Year:

2025

Publisher:

UK Government

DOI:

No DOI minted

Author(s):

Department for Business and Trade