BEAMA QUARTERLY MARKET PULSE – APRIL 2025
30 April 2025
This latest edition of Market Pulse comes at a time of both great opportunity and severe threats to the state of the UK electrical and energy products market. As we have reported in previous editions, investment in our electricity system will need to be greatly accelerated to deliver Clean Power by 2030 and electrify transport and heat. For some BEAMA sectors this could mean scaling up their production to 10 times1 what it is today, bringing huge growth possibilities for the UK economy. At the same time, the turmoil in global trading conditions caused by a rise in protectionist approaches, exemplified by the recent imposition of unprecedented new tariffs on exports to the USA, brings enormous uncertainty to UK manufacturing.
The resilience of BEAMA’s manufacturing sector has been proven through difficult times repeatedly over the decades. Most recently, the impact of Brexit and ensuring uninterrupted supply to the UK energy and construction sectors through material and component shortages in the COVID pandemic indicate the resilience of our members. There are inevitably limits to how far investment can be maintained and increased in the UK and the uncertainty generated by this global trading turmoil stretches those limits.
Where this global turmoil prompts wavering on existing Government positions and policies, it may prompt companies with UK operations but global options for investment to relocate that resource to other markets. Our survey of BEAMA members has shown that business optimism in our sector dropped dramatically as we entered 2025 in the knowledge of the disruptions to come. The single largest factor cited by our members as determining their optimism, or lack of optimism, was Government. Uncertainty over the direction of policy and regulation is consistently cited as the primary concern for investment decision-making. In addition to direction of policy and regulations, there remains a significant issue in the enforcement of well-intentioned regulations to deliver a steady pipeline of upstream equipment demand.
We currently await the publication of the UK Industrial Strategy, to which BEAMA and our members have submitted large amounts of evidence and provided workshops for Government officials. To achieve the goals of growth in Advanced Manufacturing and in Clean Energy, support for the electrotechnical supply chain and for electrification is essential. While financial support may be required in many areas to match what is being made available by other major economies, the key ask of our members is for certainty. Certainty of demand for their products, certainty of policy direction and certainty of government backing for the innovation, investment and growth they are seeking to deliver.
