UK Fashion Manufacturing: Where We Are Strong, Where We Struggle and Who Is Getting It Right

• 

There is a renewed conversation about UK fashion manufacturing. After decades of production moving overseas, brands and policymakers are once again asking whether more fashion could — and should — be made in Britain. The answer is not straightforward. The UK is unlikely to compete with the lowest-cost manufacturing countries on labour and production price alone. But that does not mean British manufacturing has lost its relevance. Far from it. The UK still has significant strengths in quality, craftsmanship, technical expertise, speed, flexibility, specialist textiles and innovation. The challenge is turning those strengths into a commercially sustainable manufacturing proposition for the future. And there are already businesses demonstrating that it can be done.

The scale of the opportunity The UK fashion and textile manufacturing sector is considerably smaller than it once was. The House of Commons Library estimates around 49,000 jobs in textile manufacturing and 20,000 in apparel manufacturing across Great Britain in 2024. The North West is the largest regional centre for textile manufacturing, while the East Midlands has the largest concentration of apparel manufacturing employment. Those figures tell us something important. Manufacturing has not disappeared. But the UK no longer has the breadth and scale of manufacturing infrastructure that it once did. That creates both a weakness and an opportunity.

Where UK manufacturing is strong;-

1. Quality and craftsmanship The UK's greatest manufacturing advantage is arguably not price. It is expertise. Britain retains internationally respected capabilities in areas including luxury textiles, tailoring, knitwear, wool, technical fabrics, outerwear and specialist manufacturing. From Scottish cashmere and tweed to Yorkshire woollen cloth and Lancashire textiles, there is a depth of knowledge that cannot simply be recreated overnight. This heritage has commercial value — particularly at the premium and luxury end of the market. Companies such as Johnstons of Elgin have built their proposition around precisely this combination of heritage, vertical manufacturing and high-quality natural fibres. UKFT highlights Johnstons as one of the UK's remaining vertically integrated textile businesses.

2. Speed and flexibility One of the strongest arguments for UK production is proximity. When a brand's design team, product-development team and manufacturer are geographically close, communication can be faster. Samples can be developed more quickly. Fit issues can be resolved sooner. Small production runs become more practical. Designers can work directly with manufacturers. And businesses can respond more quickly to changes in demand. This is particularly relevant as fashion businesses move away from relying entirely on long, inflexible supply chains. UKFT's recent “Reshoring for Real” research found that retailers have an appetite to increase UK sourcing in areas including knitwear, jersey, cut-make-trim and printing, but that cost and ethical standards remain critical conditions. The opportunity therefore isn't necessarily to bring everything back to Britain. It is to identify where UK production creates genuine value.

3. Specialist and technical manufacturing The UK remains particularly strong when the product requires specialist knowledge rather than simply the lowest possible production cost. Technical textiles are a good example. Companies such as Halley Stevensons have developed deep expertise in weatherproof and waxed fabrics, while manufacturers such as AW Hainsworth & Sons have long-standing capabilities in specialist woollen and technical cloth. This is a very different proposition from competing on basic commodity garments. The UK is at its strongest when knowledge, material expertise and technical capability matter.

4. Heritage can be an asset — if it is combined with innovation British manufacturing has extraordinary heritage. But heritage alone is not a business model. The companies that look most interesting are those combining traditional knowledge with modern technology, sustainability and contemporary customer requirements. That might mean modern machinery, digital development, new fibres, improved finishing processes, circular business models or more efficient production. Harley of Scotland, for example, has combined traditional Scottish knitwear expertise with whole garment knitting technology, a process that can significantly reduce material waste. The lesson is important: The future of British manufacturing cannot simply be about protecting the past. It has to be about using the past as a foundation for innovation.

Where UK manufacturing is struggling? The opportunities are real, but so are the problems.

1.          Cost This is the biggest challenge. UK manufacturing is expensive. Energy, labour, business costs, compliance and taxation all feed into the cost of producing here. The UK therefore struggles to compete with countries that can manufacture basic garments at substantially lower prices. This was made very clear during the February 2026 Westminster Hall debate on fashion and textile onshoring, where MPs acknowledged that UK production is often uncompetitive on cost but can compete more effectively on quality and speed.

That distinction is critical. Trying to recreate overseas mass production in the UK is unlikely to be the answer. We need to identify the areas where the UK can win without competing purely on price.

2.          Skills and the ageing workforce Perhaps the biggest long-term issue is skills. Once manufacturing moves overseas, the knowledge and training infrastructure around it can disappear too. That creates a vicious cycle. Fewer factories mean fewer jobs. Fewer jobs mean fewer young people entering the industry. Fewer young people entering the industry creates skills shortages. Skills shortages make expansion more difficult. And that makes UK manufacturing less competitive. This is not just a fashion problem. Make UK reported in 2026 that 99% of manufacturers say access to skills will shape their future growth plans, while half identify skills shortages as their biggest barrier to growth. For fashion and textiles, the issue can be even more acute because many skills are highly specialised. Pattern cutting. Machinists. Knitwear technicians. Textile technicians. Dyers and finishers. Garment technologists. Production managers. These skills take time to develop. You cannot simply switch manufacturing back on and expect the workforce to appear.

3.          Fragmentation - another challenge is scale. The UK's manufacturing base is made up of many small and specialist businesses. That can be a strength — particularly for flexibility and specialist production — but it can also make it difficult for larger brands to source significant volumes. A future UK manufacturing strategy therefore needs to think beyond individual factories. It needs to consider the ecosystem. Factories. Textile mills. Dye houses. Pattern cutters. Machinery suppliers. Technical specialists. Training providers. Designers. Product developers. Logistics. Recycling and repair. The stronger the connections between these businesses, the stronger the overall manufacturing proposition becomes.

4.           The gap between what brands say they want and what they can afford There is considerable interest in UK manufacturing. But interest does not automatically translate into orders. UKFT's research found that brands want to increase domestic sourcing, but the economics still have to work. This is where the conversation needs to become more realistic. If a UK factory is asked to produce a garment at a price that only works in an overseas supply chain, the UK factory is being set up to fail. If brands genuinely want domestic production, they may need to rethink: - Order quantities - Product margins - Lead times - Product complexity - Minimum order quantities - Pricing - Supplier relationships – Product lifecycle. You cannot ask British manufacturers to compete on an overseas cost model and then be surprised when they cannot.

Who is getting it right? There are some excellent examples of UK businesses building commercially relevant propositions.

Fashion Enter is another particularly interesting example. The organisation combines garment manufacturing with training and skills development, operating across London, Leicester and Wales. Its model demonstrates something that the UK industry desperately needs: connecting manufacturing with the next generation of skills. The business describes itself as an ethical UK garment manufacturer and fashion technology skills academy, with manufacturing and training operating alongside one another. That combination could be extremely important for the future.

Cookson & Clegg — specialist manufacturing. Cookson & Clegg is another example of a UK manufacturer operating in a specialist area. Based in Lancashire, the business manufactures workwear and represents the type of specialist production where UK manufacturing can compete through expertise, reliability and product requirements rather than attempting to compete solely on price.

Johnstons of Elgin — vertical integration and luxury Johnstons of Elgin demonstrates the power of vertical integration. Its Scottish operations combine textile manufacturing and knitwear expertise, helping the company retain control over significant parts of the product journey. This is particularly powerful in luxury, where provenance, quality and craftsmanship can justify a premium.

Halley Stevensons — specialist materials Halley Stevensons demonstrates another route to success: becoming exceptionally good at something difficult to replicate. Its expertise in waxed cotton and weatherproof fabrics gives it a distinctive position in the global textile market. UKFT highlights its long history, technical capability and focus on sustainable sourcing and lower-impact manufacturing. This is perhaps one of the clearest examples of where Britain can compete internationally: specialist knowledge + material expertise + innovation + provenance.

ACS Clothing — manufacturing's circular future represents another emerging opportunity. Rather than focusing exclusively on making new garments, ACS has built expertise around rental, resale, repair, reprocessing, remake and reverse logistics. Its business has evolved from traditional rental into a broader circular-fashion infrastructure provider. This is important because the future of fashion manufacturing may not simply be about making more products. It may increasingly involve keeping products in use for longer. Repair. Refurbishment. Remanufacturing. Resale. Recycling. These are manufacturing-adjacent capabilities that could become increasingly important in the UK.

The future of UK manufacturing isn't about going backwards There is a temptation to romanticise British manufacturing. The mills. The factories. The machinists. The heritage. And there is certainly something worth protecting. The UK still has the foundations and now we need to build the next generation of British manufacturing on them.