At first glance, it looks like our UK manufacturing and engineering businesses are growing  strongly as the number of companies doing between £10m and £50m turnover has increased from 7,550 in 2019 to 9,535 in 2025.

The growth seems impressive, doesn’t it?

But don’t be fooled.

Those revenue bands don’t allow for inflation, which was 28.3% over the period. If you’d been doing £8m a year in 2018 and increased your prices at the rate of inflation, you’d have broken through into the £10m+ bracket last year without winning any new business.