UK manufacturers must embrace AI and invest in skills, minister says
5 March 2026 
The UK Business and Trade Secretary, Peter Kyle, has urged Britain’s manufacturers to transform their operations by embracing artificial intelligence, advanced technologies and new export models while investing heavily in skills and training.
Speaking at the Make UK annual conference, attended by Aaron Blutstein, PWE Editor, manufacturers, and business leaders, Kyle outlined a strategy centred on modernising production, strengthening the workforce and expanding global trade opportunities.
He said the future of manufacturing would depend on companies adopting emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, 3D printing and other advanced systems that could boost productivity and improve the competitiveness of UK industry.
However, he warned that technology alone would not secure the sector’s long-term success. “Production is about more than just machinery. It’s about people. We cannot automate our way to prosperity if we neglect skills,” he said.
Kyle said the engineers of the future must be as comfortable working with artificial intelligence and data as they are with machinery and design.
To support that shift, the Government has pledged over £1bn in sector-specific skills packages aimed at strengthening the workforce in key industries. The funding includes support for apprenticeships, partnerships between industry and further education colleges, and collaboration with universities.
The Government has also launched an advanced manufacturing upskilling and reskilling programme, alongside short training courses funded through the growth and skills levy, which are expected to begin in April.
If implemented successfully, Kyle said advanced manufacturing could remain one of the UK’s most important drivers of economic growth in the decades ahead. He highlighted that the Government is mobilising support through UK Export Finance to help smaller manufacturers export more goods and services, noting that manufacturing in the 21st Century is not just about exporting goods, but also about exporting targeted and integrated solutions.
Goods, he explained, are often bundled with services such as software, data analytics and maintenance contracts: “An aircraft engine today is not merely sold as a piece of hardware, it is sold as a ‘power-by-the-hour’. In a service model, in which performance is monitored digitally and maintenance is predictive rather than reactive. Now that combination of advanced engineering and digital service revision is where the margins are won. It’s where the profits are increasingly being made and it’s where shareholder value is being built.”
To succeed, he continued, trade policy, export finance and diplomatic engagement must be aligned with Britain’s manufacturing strengths. The question, he said “is not whether the transformation in manufacturing will occur. It is whether Britain will shape it or be shaped by it. Now I believe that we have every reason to face the future with real genuine optimism. We possess world-class research institutions, we have deep capital markets, we are a global trading nation, and above all we have the capacity to adapt to respond to new technological realities. The strategic imperative therefore is completely clear to me: we must invest in conception, we must modernise production and we must maximise utilisation.”
He concluded that by working together the UK can do all of these things, and can compete and win.