Engineering Sector Manufacturing Report: January 2026

The findings in this report have been extracted from a study undertaken by Ibec Research which invited over 700 senior business leaders from the manufacturing sector to take part in an online survey. The survey achieved 99 interviews in total, 34 of which were with representatives of an Engineering enterprise. Fieldwork took place between September and October 2025, in line with the timings of previous research.

Please note, differences between surveys should be taken as indicative rather than conclusive, unless highlighted. The findings should also be interpreted in the context of participating companies which exhibited a significant skew towards smaller operations (i.e. less than 50 employees) in 2023.