Taking action to support the aerospace industry
The Aerospace Growth Partnership will tackle issues affecting the competitiveness of the UK industry.
The new group met for the first time this week. It will see government and industry working together to address the issues that affect UK competitiveness in the sector.
Its work will focus on ensuring that the UK remains an attractive location for aerospace companies to carry out work both on current and future generations of civil aircraft.
Business Minister Mark Prisk, who will jointly chair the group alongside Marcus Bryson, Chief Executive of GKN Aerospace, said:
“Aerospace is a UK success that we should be very proud of. We are number one in Europe and number two in world with a 17% global market share.
“Aerospace companies in the UK directly employ around 100,000 highly skilled individuals and support many more jobs across the wider UK economy. Salaries in the sector are 36% above the manufacturing average.
“This group will bring aerospace and government together so we can take action to address barriers to growth, boost exports and grow the number of highly skilled jobs available in the UK.”
The UK Aerospace industry has an annual turnover of £22.2bn and some £32.2bn of orders were placed in 2009.
It is an R&D-intensive and high-technology industry with technology spin-offs to the rest of the economy such as radar, composite materials, and jet engines.
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