UK manufacturing has a digital problem.

If you spend any time around UK manufacturing, you’ll hear the same familiar line: it’s behind on digital.

It isn’t. It’s just never had to rely on it in the same way other industries have. And when you look at the numbers, that becomes pretty obvious.

According to The Manufacturer, the sector generates around £224 billion in output, contributing roughly 10% of the UK economy. It employs 2.6 million people, drives around 45% of exports, and accounts for over half of all UK business R&D spend.

These aren’t small, struggling businesses trying to catch up.

This is where some of the UK’s biggest, most operationally sophisticated organisations sit. Businesses built on engineering excellence, global supply chains and long-standing commercial relationships. They’ve grown through capability and consistency - not through slick digital journeys or perfectly optimised websites.

So the idea that manufacturing is “behind” misses the point slightly. It’s just been winning on different terms to the service sector.

For most manufacturers, digital hasn’t historically been a growth driver.

Revenue has come from reputation, relationships and the ability to deliver at scale. Naturally, that shapes how digital evolves. Websites become functional rather than strategic. Systems grow over time - ERP, CRM, product databases - rarely designed to work together as one connected ecosystem.

And when the business is already performing well, there’s very little urgency to challenge that.

But things are shifting.

Buyers are more self-directed. Expectations around user experience are higher. Internal teams expect better tools. And the inefficiencies that were once manageable (manual processes, duplicated data, disconnected systems) are becoming harder to ignore.

Digital isn’t just a marketing channel anymore. It’s becoming operational.

What makes this sector interesting is the scale of impact. In many industries, improving digital leads to incremental gains. In manufacturing, it often lands much harder.

Because when you’re dealing with complex product ranges, high-value transactions and layered supply chains, even small improvements compound quickly. A better structured website doesn’t just improve aesthetics - it changes how customers find, understand, and specify products. Connecting systems doesn’t just save time, it removes entire layers of inefficiency.

We’ve seen businesses move from brochure-style sites to platforms that actively support sales teams, distributors and customers. Not through gimmicks, but through clarity - clear product structures, better data and joined-up systems.

That’s where the real value sits.

Under the surface, the same pattern appears again and again. Data is fragmented. ERP holds one version of the truth, CRM another. Product information is scattered across spreadsheets, PDFs and internal tools. The website sits separately, disconnected from it all.

It works, but not well.

Teams compensate. Workarounds become standard. Knowledge becomes siloed. And for a long time, that’s tolerated, because the business still performs. But as soon as you try to scale, improve customer experience or make better decisions based on data, those cracks widen quickly.

This is where digital becomes more than a redesign.

When systems are properly connected and the website becomes a genuine front-end to your operational data, things start to shift. Information becomes consistent. Customers can self-serve. Internal teams spend less time duplicating effort. Decision-making improves because the data finally lines up.

None of that is flashy. But in a sector contributing nearly half of UK exports, those gains matter.

This is also where many manufacturers hit a wall.

WordPress is often the starting point - it’s accessible, familiar and works well at a basic level. But as complexity grows, it tends to stretch. On the other end, traditional enterprise platforms can feel heavy, expensive and overly rigid.

What’s needed is something in between.

A platform that can handle complexity, integrate with existing systems, and scale over time - without forcing the business into a predefined structure.

That’s why we’ve seen Umbraco resonate so strongly in manufacturing. It offers the flexibility to model products properly, connect systems, and evolve as the business grows. It’s robust enough to act as digital infrastructure, but pragmatic enough to work around real-world complexity.

For many manufacturers, it becomes the bridge; from a basic web presence to something far more connected and valuable.

At Pixelbuilders, working with manufacturers like Barrett Steel, BELL Lighting, Teknek,  Power Control, Fleetclean, Plasmor and Steeper Group (to name just a few…), the story is rarely about transformation for the sake of it. It’s about unlocking what’s already there.

These are already successful businesses. The opportunity isn’t to reinvent them; it’s to remove friction. To connect systems, structure information properly and to make digital work as hard as the rest of the organisation already does.

Once that shift happens, the results are tangible.

Websites generate better quality enquiries, internal teams become more efficient and, finally, data becomes something you can rely on. Ultimately, digital moves from being a side concern to something that quietly underpins performance and business processes.

The real opportunity

The narrative that manufacturing is “behind” on digital undersells the sector. This is an industry that drives exports, leads in R&D and operates at serious scale. If anything, it’s under-optimised digitally not underperforming.

And that’s what makes it interesting.

Because when you apply the right digital thinking to businesses that are already this capable, the upside isn’t incremental. It’s multiplicative.