Britain’s fashion and textile industry, often framed through the lens of creativity and design, is emerging as a case study in policy neglect despite its outsized economic contribution. A new report, ‘Policy Fragmentation and Place-Based Opportunity in UK Fashion and Textiles’, by Tamara Cincik and Alix Coombs, argues that the sector’s challenges stem less from market weakness than from fragmented governance that has left it stranded between industrial and creative policy silos.

At the heart of the report lies a paradox. While the UK’s 2025 Industrial Strategy names creative industries among its priority growth sectors, fashion manufacturing remains largely excluded from that policy architecture. Yet the numbers suggest a sector far too significant to be treated as peripheral. Fashion and textiles contribute £62 billion in gross value added, support one in every 25 UK jobs, and generate £23 billion in tax revenues. Manufacturing alone accounts for 303,000 jobs and £15.6 billion in GVA, underlining that production, not just design, remains a material part of the sector’s economic weight.

Growth without industrial recognition

The report contends that this economic heft has not translated into institutional support. At the national level, fashion is typically recognized as an intellectual property-driven creative industry, while manufacturing support gravitates toward capital-heavy sectors such as automotive and aerospace. The result is a policy vacuum where apparel production receives limited strategic attention despite mounting geopolitical concerns over supply resilience and domestic sourcing.

That disconnect is now manifesting in operating stress. One of the report’s starkest findings is the ‘speed trap’ confronting UK manufacturers. Brands increasingly demand eight-week production turnarounds, while base cloth sourcing can take up to sixteen weeks, exposing the mismatch between commercial expectations and industrial realities. For many suppliers, this has become a structural profitability squeeze rather than a cyclical disruption.

The pressure is visible in company-level performance. SME and micro fashion businesses recorded an average one-third decline in sales revenues in the final quarter of 2024, highlighting fragility at the base of the value chain. The report links this not only to volatile demand, but to asymmetrical buyer power that has left smaller manufacturers absorbing disproportionate commercial risk.

Regional clusters as economic infrastructure

Rather than viewing manufacturing as a standalone activity, the report reframes it as anchor infrastructure supporting regional ecosystems that extend into logistics, maintenance, repair services and vocational training. This place-based framing becomes particularly visible in Leicester, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Leicester, once home to around 1,000 factories in 2020, has become a cautionary example of industrial erosion. The decline of the sector has been accompanied by social fallout, including rising food bank use and fuel poverty among former garment workers, illustrating how manufacturing decline can trigger broader community instability.

Scotland offers a more contrast. Its textiles and leather sector is targeting £1.5 billion in turnover and 13,000 employees by 2030, supported by a more coordinated regional development approach. Northern Ireland presents an even broader industrial interpretation, positioning textiles not merely as apparel production but as part of advanced manufacturing linked to aerospace, automotive and clean energy.

Together, these case studies reinforce the report’s argument that fashion manufacturing should be understood as economic infrastructure, not a legacy sector.

Procurement as an untapped growth lever

Perhaps the report’s most striking argument centers on public procurement as an overlooked industrial tool. Unlike subsidy-heavy interventions, procurement offers demand stability, something many manufacturers cite as their most pressing need. The report points to defence as a major missed opportunity. As Britain moves toward defence spending equivalent to 5 per cent of GDP by 2035, investment discussions remain dominated by weapons systems and artificial intelligence, with little recognition of textile-linked opportunities in uniforms, technical fabrics and protective equipment.

Evidence from pandemic-era PPE contracts offers a compelling counterpoint. One manufacturer cited in the report described public contracts during Covid as the most commercially stable period the business had ever experienced. That finding strengthens the report’s proposal for procurement-led pilots in uniforms and workwear tied to local sourcing and accredited labour standards.

Europe’s contrasting examples

International comparisons sharpen the critique. Italy and France, the report notes, treat textiles as a strategic industrial asset rather than a residual sector. Italy’s textile market, valued at $26.9 billion in 2024, has been supported by €250 million in coordinated state intervention specifically targeting the fashion-textile ecosystem.

France has moved even more aggressively through the €100 billion France Relance programme, aimed at transforming domestic production models. The report highlights a particularly revealing benchmark: Made in France goods capture up to 84 per cent of value created, compared with just 35 per cent for imports. The implication is clear: industrial policy can materially influence domestic value retention. For Britain, these examples expose not just a competitiveness gap but a philosophical difference in how strategic manufacturing is understood.

Toward a new industrial framework

The report’s proposed ‘Sustainable Garment Transformation Framework’ seeks to bridge that divide by aligning industrial, environmental and social policy. Its central proposition is that fashion and textiles should be formally recognized within industrial strategy as a hybrid sector spanning creative innovation and manufacturing capability.

That hybrid framing could prove decisive as Britain grapples with productivity, regional inequality and supply chain resilience. The economic case, as the report makes clear through both national metrics and regional evidence, is already established. The policy challenge is whether Westminster moves from rhetorical support for reshoring to instruments capable of making it viable.

For a sector contributing £62 billion while supporting millions across intertwined supply chains, the bigger question may no longer be whether fashion and textiles deserve industrial strategy status, but whether the UK can afford the costs of continuing without one.