Chief Exec’s report Q3 2025
Read the full Q3 2025 Quarterly Review 5 minute read The path to recovery hinted at in last quarter’s survey has continued, albeit in slower and smaller steps than any of us would like to see. It’s perhaps no surprise that a return to a more positive business outlook is progressing at this slower rate, […]
Chief Exec’s report Q2 2025
Read the full Q2 2025 Quarterly Review 3 minute read This quarter’s survey shows a welcome step in the right direction, but it would be a stretch to herald it as a solid path to recovery. More balanced in optimism vs caution might be the more accurate description, and as ever it’s important to reflect […]
Chief Exec’s report Q1 2025
Read the full Q1 2025 Quarterly Review 3 minute read This quarter’s survey is significant from a calendar point of view, marking us at the one quarter point of the twenty-first century as we reached the twenty-five year mark. It would be good if we were able to mark that milestone with good news, but […]
Chief Exec’s report Q4 2024
Read the full Q4 2024 Quarterly Review 3 minute read Our final survey of the year makes for tough reading, and there is little sign of brighter times immediately ahead within it. It follows a more marginal but clearly concerning third quarter review and reflects the accelerated conversations we have had with industry over the […]
Chief Exec’s report Q3 2024
Read the full Q3 2024 Quarterly Review 3 minute read A key talking point for the last quarter from a business point of view has to be the election of a new UK Government, and on this occasion the polls called it right, with Labour sweeping into power on the back of some impressive gains. […]
Chief Exec’s report Q2 2024
Read the full Q2 2024 Quarterly Review 3 minute read As we approach the middle of the year, and hopefully something resembling a summer, our survey results paint a fairly sunny picture of overall increased orders, output and optimism. Improvements in wholesale energy prices alongside a general slowing of wider measures of inflation, are an […]
Chief Exec’s report Q1 2024
Read the full Q1 2024 Quarterly Review 3 minute read Our watchful eye each quarter for the direction of travel for our industry is a simple reflection of our reason for being. We exist principally to support and promote Scotland’s engineering and manufacturing industry, and our ambition has always been to assist its growth to […]
Chief Exec’s report Q4 2023
Read the full Q4 2023 Quarterly Review 6 minute read Last quarter we asked the question of whether the UK’s rising interest rate had brought a lasting negative impact, or more hopefully if this was just a temporary dip. The conversations with members since have definitely erred towards the side of caution, and in reviewing […]
Chief Exec’s report Q3 2023
Read the full Q3 2023 Quarterly Review 6 minute read So, our welcome, maybe unexpected, run of nine consecutive quarters of order growth has come to an end, leaving us with the question of whether the UK’s steeply rising interest rate has brought a chilly economic wind, or more optimistically that we are merely experiencing […]
Chief Exec’s report Q2 2023
Read the full Q2 2023 Quarterly Review 6 minute read Entering a third year of positive orders and output is definitely noteworthy, but it feels like a statement that is struggling to command attention in comparison to the feedback we are reporting on changes in flexible work patterns in our sector. Society has seen a […]
Chief Exec’s report Q1 2023
Read the full Q1 2023 Quarterly Review 6 minute read Two consecutive years of order and output growth are not trivial given the times we live in, but it’s worth rewinding to the only time that metric has been exceeded in the last 23 years. From March 2003 to December 2007, the same set of […]
Chief Exec’s report Q4 2022
Read the full Q4 2022 Quarterly Review 6 minute read It’s tempting to think that life is increasingly chaotic, but the last three months really has taken the biscuit. When we wrote in September of our deep concerns about the cost of energy crisis for business, we welcomed the imminent end of an absence of […]
Chief Exec’s report Q3 2022
Read the full Q3 2022 Quarterly Review 6 minute read In asking if there could possibly be a worse time to have a lack of direction from our UK Government, for our Engineering sector I am afraid I struggle to see a worse scenario than the timing of the absence of leadership we are experiencing […]
Chief Exec’s report Q2 2022
Read the full Q2 2022 Quarterly Review 6 minute read As an opening summary, a fifth successive quarter of positive principal measures might feel like something worth celebrating, and whilst there are signs of softening in the upward rate, we surely expected a sharper response than the levelling seen here, given the escalation in global […]
Chief Exec’s report Q1 2022
Read the full Q1 2022 Quarterly Review 6 minute read Welcome to our first review of 2022, taking stock of what feels like a stabilising pandemic position, and especially pleased to report that the positive demand we cautiously tracked through 2021 appears to not only be holding but in many cases strengthening. Four successive positive […]
Chief Exec’s report Q4 2021
Read the full Q4 2021 Quarterly Review 4 minute read Welcome all to our final review of 2021, a year of surprising welcome levels of order recovery in one sense, dampened by the reality of raw material, component, logistics and resource shortages and costs. One member couldn’t have described it more clearly in their response […]
Chief Exec’s report Jun 2020
The contents of this quarter’s review should come with a health warning, as reading it will not be a pleasant experience, and those of a nervous disposition should perhaps look away now. It is widely anticipated that we are now in the second UK wide recession of this century, and its perhaps helpful to compare […]
Chief Exec’s report Mar 2020
In our final 2019 review of Scotland’s Engineering Manufacturing sector we delicately described results as “chastening”, with confidence matching orders in steep decline, and we feared that the resilience shown in our sector had reached the bottom of its reserve. This week I opened the results of our newest survey with extra interest, as I […]
Chief Exec’s report Dec 19
It seems difficult to believe that not only are we approaching the end of year, but also the end of another decade, and soon will be talking about the 2020’s. As a child of the 70’s and 80’s the last “20’s” were ancient history even to me, although at some time the phrase “The Roaring […]
Chief Exec’s report Q2 2024 – copy
CERN has recently released a new price enquiry. The CERN reference is: DO-34317 – Supply of Stainless Steel Machined Components (PHASE 2 SERIES COMPONENTS_MEC_P2) Abstract: This Technical Specification concerns the supply of stainless-steel machined components. CERN will use these components for the manufacturing of magnets cryoassemblies for the HL-LHC Project CERN Price Enquiries Please note this tender […]
