FEATURE MHA MacIntyre Hudson


Challenges continue for this vital sector


Few will forget the last 18 months, as


manufacturing and engineering businesses showed their resilience by adapting as quickly as possible to the new situation. On top of that, we’ve also had the challenge of coping with an exit from Europe that has been anything but simple. T ings have moved quickly - the UK has, at the time of writing, administered a fi rst dose of the vaccine to over 45 million people, the fi nal stages of the third national lockdown are being lifted and there was a last-minute deal on Brexit. Whilst this was perhaps not the deal that might have been envisaged by the slogan ‘take back control’ and early 2021 has seen either ‘teething problems’ or ‘fundamental fl aws’ exposed, depending on where you sit, it was a deal, nonetheless. Against this backdrop, MHA MacIntyre Hudson


asked manufacturing and engineering companies in the UK if their views of the pandemic and Brexit had changed over the last six months and whether their initial thoughts when asked last year had been right. When looking at how long it would take entities


Richard Powell Partner


MHA MacIntyre Hudson


to return to their trading level pre-COVID, the most recent set of answers has seen the timescales lengthen a little with between six and 12 months and 12 and 24 months now representing 66% of the surveyed population against 62% last time. Each of those answers has, individually, increased by 2% and the fall


has been in the less than six month category which fell from 28% to 24%. T is starts to underline the lengthening of the impact that business has felt and is, I suspect, coloured by the setbacks of successive lockdowns across the country. T e longer impact felt from COVID is also, perhaps, echoed in


responses concerning investment plans for the next 12 months. Whilst the majority (75%) are planning to invest less (signifi cantly


or slightly) or the same as planned, this number has fallen from 81% six months ago, perhaps indicating that business will have to invest further to overcome the impact that COVID has had upon business. T e individual largest response remains unchanged at 31% being


that investment plans will proceed as planned but 24%, as opposed to 19%, are looking to invest slightly or signifi cantly more. However, with recent measures announced by the Chancellor that


are aimed at encouraging investment, we will look with interest as to whether these will achieve their aim. We also asked whether respondents had changed their product mix


as a result of the pandemic. T e answers remained virtually unchanged with 51%, as opposed to 50%, saying ‘no’. T is, of course, can be interpreted from both directions and, of the


49% who have changed, 32% have done so by a little, 10% by quite a lot, and 7% signifi cantly. Turning to the specifi c impact of COVID inside the workplace, we asked whether social distancing had aff ected production capacity.


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ALL THINGS BUSINESS


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