Celebrating National Manufacturing Day 2025

Last Thursday 25^th September marked National Manufacturing Day 2025, an opportunity for industry pros and beginners alike to celebrate the sector and the people behind the scenes, by opening their doors to visitors of all ages for a tour and a glimpse into the work they do. We hope that by introducing youngsters into an exciting environment like this, they can be inspired into a future career in the industry.

To celebrate the occasion, Enginuity colleagues made visits to businesses up and down the country. They joined guided tours of different facilities, and heard all about the success of apprenticeships as bridging the gap for young people between learner and skilled professional.

The Thetford three

Sector Engagement Manager Fiona McGarry made the trip to Thetford to see collaboration in action. Three local businesses worked with Breckland Council to welcome over 250 local Year 6 pupils through the doors and onto the production floor.

Across premises at Boniface Engineering Ltd, Peerless Plastics & Coatings, and Warren Services, workers showed off their products and invited guests to get hands-on with some of the testing and measuring processes.

“What a day we had yesterday,” said Will Bridgman, MD at Warren Services. “In celebration of National Manufacturing Day we stuck to tradition and opened our doors to local school children for tours and demonstrations.

“It was a jam-packed day with many of the Warren team helping out…at Fison, students got to see a visual demonstration of a robot welder, and help out the quality department measure some parts using CMM equipment.

“At Brickfields, our groups were shown around the different technical areas, and got to build Warren-branded Lego mini-figures.”

“The timing couldn’t be better for new pupils in Year 6 who are starting to consider future careers,” said Fiona. “The experience for primary school children was amazing!”

Championing young talent

Sector Engagment Lead, Maia Rowe-Sampson visited Gillingham for some time with Wozair Limited alongside local recruiters and other employment specialists. Specialist producers of HVAC equipment, Wozair works with suppliers in the oil and gas, nuclear marine, and renewables sectors.

The tour took in the whole production line as well as some discussion about the kind of roles required along the way. Wozair also showed off the great work its apprentices are doing – championing their young learners as the key to long-term industry success.

“Thank you Wozair for showing me around!” said Maia. “It’s always great to see the highly specialised jobs in action, and amazing to hear about your apprentices.”

Mandeep Sandhu from the Sector Engagement Team set out to Shipley for a day at Produmax, to join the celebrations as Bradford Manufacturing Week got off to a great start. Mayor of West Yorkshire Tracy Brabin delivered a speech complete with some fascinating stats about the sector – the average age in UK manufacturing is 52! And over 100,000 people work in West Yorkshire manufacturing. With so many roles to maintain over the coming years, it’s essential to attract new talent to the sector.

At Produmax the staff welcomed local students and introduced hard-working apprentices to illustrate the simple steps it takes to embark on a new career.

Learning new processes

Andrew Thomas, a Technical Specialist, visited Gilcrest Manufacturing’s open day at their Bristol site. During a guided tour of the production area, a tour guide provided detailed insights into Gilcrest’s manufacturing processes and the application of their composite panels across various industries.

“National Manufacturing Day offered a great opportunity to visit Gilcrest Manufacturing,” said Andrew. “They taught us about their production processes and end products, and we gained insight into the wide range of sectors they operate in.”

Celebrating the future of engineering

This year marked the fourth successive year that the sector has come together to hold events under Make UK’s National Manufacturing Day banner. It represents the opportunity to connect companies and community, giving locals the chance to engage with businesses and see what goes on behind the scenes. As we saw with Breckland Council it’s also great for young visitors to get a glimpse of a career in engineering.

We’re excited to see what National Manufacturing Day 2026 will bring, and look forward to more opportunities to engage with industry leaders and budding engineers across the sector.

Visit the NMD website