50,000 New UK Jobs in the next 2 years being generated by the Automotive Industry

Coming barely a week or so since Jaguar Land Rover announced work starting on its new £186 million manufacturing facility in Brazil came the news, out of a new study by Lloyds Bank, of huge job numbers planned to be created in the UK over the next few years.

The survey of manufacturers across the automotive supply chain produced results and predictions of jobs growth on the phenomena of “Re-shoring,” that of bringing production back from overseas to the UK.  Companies looking to re-shore are not just restricted to the automotive sector but that’s something for another day

The survey found a total of 76 percent of manufacturers in the automotive sector expect to grow by up to 25 percent over the next two years, with each business, on average, planning to create 27 jobs in that period which equates to almost 50,000 jobs.

David Atkinson, head of manufacturing and SME commercial banking at Lloyds Banking Group, said: “The sector’s growth in recent years has made the automotive industry the ‘jewel in the crown’ of the nation’s economy, and this looks set to continue with thousands of new jobs predicted to be created.

One of my colleagues also recently attended the launch of the new Jaguar XE and Land Rover Discovery Sport – 2 key new models for JLR.  Whilst the vehicles themselves are of course impressive, my colleague was particularly taken with JLR’s comment on the presentation that they had “50 new product events” planned for the next 5 years – this including facelifts, range expansion, specification enhancements and of course the new engines being built at Wolverhampton which promises to be class leading in terms of refinement, performance and emissions.

This sort of comment and prediction on job creation is a serious wake-up call for the property industry.  It is down to developers and agents to respond to this sort of demand which will surely translate into a need for more factory and warehouse space.

It has taken a while for us to realise it, but we now have in this country some of the most productive vehicle manufacturing operations in the world and a supply chain with the potential to compete anywhere.

The need to identify and bring forward more sites around Coventry, Birmingham, Crewe, Telford and other Greater Midlands locations is something we will be working hard on.

If you are working in the Automotive supply chain and need advice and assistance with property acquisitions or planning expansion of existing facilities then contact myself or one my colleagues.