UK ‘supersectors’ need to be prioritised for economic growth – major new industry report warns

• Vital sectors including aerospace, spirits, financial services and car manufacturing generate a disproportionate share of exports and support millions of jobs across the UK, offering immense potential for economic growth.
• Rapidly rising energy costs, workforce shortages, and trade barriers abroad pose significant risks to these industries’ future success.
• The government must act urgently to implement a unified industrial and trade strategy to safeguard and grow these critical sectors and unlock their economic potential.
• Geopolitical volatility requires government to maximise export potential or risk chance for economic growth.

A major new report published today warns that economic growth opportunities are at stake unless the UK’s international ‘supersectors’ are prioritised.

Just six industries are identified as providing the UK with a critical edge in the global economy and the opportunity to drive substantial economic growth.

These key sectors - legal and consultancy services, pharmaceuticals, aerospace, automotive, financial services, and spirits - generate nearly a quarter of UK exports and are consistently among the most productive sectors of the UK economy.

In many cases they reflect decades of investment in strength and adaptation, supported by the right public policy choices. 

However, the report, commissioned by Chivas Brothers Pernod Ricard and produced by Global Counsel, highlights spiralling energy costs, workforce shortages, trade barriers, and threats to intellectual property protections as key challenges.

Without decisive intervention, the UK could lose its edge in these vital industries to global competitors, missing a major opportunity to capitalise on their growth potential.

The UK’s supersectors are not just the backbone of the UK’s external trade performance - they represent a pathway to stronger economic growth and enhanced global influence. These sectors sustain millions of jobs, drive productivity, and anchor regional economies by connecting them to the global economy. Many of these industries, including pharmaceuticals and financial services, consistently deliver trade surpluses.  

At home, rising industrial energy costs, which are among the highest in the developed world, threaten to erode competitiveness and undermine future growth. The report also identifies a lack of targeted workforce training and development as a risk, given the dependence of supersectors on highly skilled labour.

Abroad, barriers to trade, such as tariffs and regulatory divergence, are impeding access to critical markets including the EU, US, and India. Growing threats to protections for intellectual property weaken high-value sectors like life sciences and high-value branded UK exports such as spirits.

The report sets out practical choices to secure the UK’s supersectors and calls for urgent government action in seven areas: 

• Build a domestic energy platform that delivers affordable, reliable, and low-carbon energy to sustain competitiveness and meet export market standards.
• Address workforce shortages by expanding training, promoting “wisdom skills,” and balancing local investment with managed migration.
• Review the EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement to reduce technical barriers and secure Swiss-style mutual recognition arrangements.
• Strengthen intellectual property protections to safeguard innovation and support global knowledge transfer.
• Focus regulatory diplomacy on key areas like financial standards, pharmaceutical regulation, and emerging technologies such as AI.
• Ensure the vast majority of UK trade is covered by high-quality Free Trade Agreements within five years, including tariff reductions and digital trade provisions and navigate geo-political uncertainty to maintain access to critical markets.
• Streamline policymaking across Whitehall to provide a unified interface for industries and ensure consistent support for key sectors. 

These actions are essential to protect, grow, and maximise the economic potential of the industries that underpin the UK’s success in global markets.

Stephen Adams, Senior Director for Trade at Global Counsel, said: “The UK government has committed to building a trade and industrial strategy that starts with the UK’s comparative advantages. This report sets out what that might mean. Whether they are goods or services, the UK’s export strengths often have a common base in the right local conditions for growth and fair access to markets abroad. In many cases these strengths have taken decades to build and they need a long term approach to trade and industrial policy to sustain. Especially against a volatile geopolitical backdrop it has never been more important to understand where these strengths came from and how to sustain them. In many cases those strengths are facing huge challenges that need urgent solutions.”

The study concludes that effective domestic frameworks are not enough on their own, and must be supported by international policies that maximise the UK’s ability to export its commercial successes.

International markets should be treated as a priority, particularly following the election of President Trump, to ensure that access remains open and potentially enhanced for UK supersectors.