The latest Contract Manufacturing Index shows the market shrugging off concerns about Brexit to gain 11% in the first quarter of 2017.
That is according to the latest Qimtek Contract Manufacturing Index (CMI) figures, which also showed machining was up 15% and fabrication up by 13% on the previous quarter.
Karl Wigart, owner of Qimtek, said: “We are now in a position where business is better than it was before the Brexit vote. January was a very strong month for machining – as was January 2016 – and fabrication still seems to be making excellent progress.”
“What the figures don’t show, but which is possibly significant, is that the value of individual orders has been higher than average over the quarter.”
The CIM also shows that the index for the first quarter of 2017 was 163, compared to 147 in the final quarter of 2016.
Growth has been steady but less dramatic year-on-year. In the first quarter of 2016 the index was 155, so the last 12 months have seen a rise in the index of just over 5%.
To put the figures in context, machining accounted for 48% of the total business and fabrication for 36% of the total, with other processes, including electronics and plastic moulding, accounting for the remainder.
The CMI is produced by sourcing specialist Qimtek and reflects the £3bn total purchasing budget for 4,000 manufacturing companies looking to place business in any given month.
It represents a sample of over 4,000 companies that together could have a purchasing budget of more than £3bn and a supplier base of over 7,000 companies.