Industry is central to the UK’s growth mission. The Modern Industrial Strategy identifies manufacturing and other growth-driving sectors as important sources of long-term investment, productivity and output growth, while seeking to strengthen high-potential clusters and strategic industrial sites. Government has also signalled a renewed focus on industrial growth and reindustrialisation, seeking to attract investment, strengthen manufacturing and other strategic industries, and create high-quality industrial jobs across the UK. Recent statements by the Burnham Government have emphasised its commitment to reindustrialisation, regional growth and competitiveness, highlighting the importance of lower energy costs, improved infrastructure and place-based industrial development to support manufacturing investment and growth.
Energy-intensive industries (EIIs) are particularly important in this context. As foundational sectors that supply essential materials such as steel, cement, chemicals, glass, ceramics and refined products, they underpin wider manufacturing value chains while contributing significantly to regional economies and industrial employment. Delivering on these ambitions, however, requires detailed work to align investment timelines, key policy interventions and the role of public institutions, alongside consistent signals that these sectors have a long-term future in the UK. A key challenge is that industrial investment decisions are already being made today, while many of the low-carbon infrastructure networks needed to support decarbonisation will not be available until later in the decade. This creates a risk that investment, decarbonisation and industrial strategy objectives become misaligned.
