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BNFL Oxide Fuels Complex, Springfields
Did you know...
30% of Lancashire's income is contributed by manufacturing
Lancashire has moved a long way from its industrial roots in the old cotton and coal industries, which at their peak dominated economic activity to a degree scarcely imaginable today.
Modern Lancashire, with a population of more than 1.1 million and in excess of 35,000 registered businesses, is characterised by a spread of interlinked medium-sized towns and cities, including Burnley, Preston and Lancaster. The county also includes small market towns, seaside resorts, ports, commuter settlements and large areas of attractive countryside and moorland.
Nowadays, Lancashire has a large and diverse economy with a strong mix of both international and indigenous companies such as British Nuclear Fuels, Leyland Trucks and MyTravel.
Manufacturing remains a key and highly valued wealth-creating sector still accounting for a quarter of the workforce. One in six of this industrial workforce is employed in high technology industry. However, as elsewhere in the UK, it is the financial, business and technical services which are now fuelling much of the growth in jobs. More people are in work than ever before, and unemployment remains well below the national average.
In particular, Lancashire has a dynamic and outward-looking aerospace and high-tech engineering industry which develops, manufactures and exports globally competitive products and services and which has capabilities that are unsurpassed. Employing directly and indirectly as many as 30,000 people in about 200 companies, the local aircraft industry represents the largest concentration of aerospace production in the UK. It is internationally recognised as the equal of other world-class centres like Seattle in the US or Toulouse in France.
The county's unique aerospace know-how and skills base has an enviable record stretching back to the world's very first registered aerospace manufacturing company. It has subsequently played a key role in developing and producing a vast range of more than 100 different aircraft types, as well as an impressive range of jet engines, which have included some of the industry's most advanced and innovative products and processes. This tradition continues apace today in the design and manufacture of the very latest technology in the form of the Eurofighter-Typhoon and Airbus wing structures using some of the most sophisticated facilities to be found anywhere in the world.