In today’s blog to celebrate UKTI’s national ‘Export Week’ in the UK – we take a quick look back in the archives, about how the focus on exports for the British aerospace industry was vital in the 1960s, and the strong overall position the UK found itself in.
As part of the Plowden Committee – which was set up in 1965 to study the future of the British aircraft industry – the Society of British Aerospace Companies (SBAC) submitted its report; outlining the size, shape and make up of the UK’s industry. The SBAC report offers an insight into the value of exports in the UK and the comparison of UK exports to other nations.
Front Cover of SBAC Report, from February 1965.
Key highlights:
- The UK was the second largest aerospace exporter in the world in 1963. The US led the world with £434m worth of Aerospace exports, followed by the UK on £105m and France on £85m. (£105m represents around £2bn in today’s money).
- This value grew 10% from 1956 – which saw £95m of exports – but did decrease from a value of £150m in 1958.
- For the UK, £105m in exports represented around 23% of the overall distribution of UK aerospace industry revenue in 1964. This was actually larger than the US, who saw only 6% of its industry revenue value in exports.
- The UK’s Aerospace industry revenues were dominated by sales to the UK government, at 71% – however, the US saw their sales to government at over 83% of their industry’s revenue value.
- 46% of the value of UK Aerospace exports in 1963 came from Aircraft engines. This had grown over 3x faster than overall exports, from around £33m in 1956.
The report from the SBAC also included table of the various export values from each aircraft platform designed and manufactured in the UK. On the military side, it was the Hawker Hunter which dominated sales – reaching export figures of £55m between 1956 and 1963. On the civil aviation side, the Vickers Viscount was by far the most popular export – with figures of over £113m.
The final report from the Plowden Committee outlined a number of different policy recommendations – one of which was to develop a sustained drive to improve exports.
As we can see from above, despite declining export values from the late 1950s, the UK was in a good position to exploit its current export opportunities – with nearly ¼ of its sales focused on exports already.
The report and the industry in 1965 recognised the substantial value of exports for the growth of the industry. In 2013, with £24.7bn in exports representing around 90% of UK Aerospace revenue, this value continues to be vital for the future success of UK industry.
