£16m funding will expand Made Smarter to SMEs across England
4 November 2024 
Thousands of smaller UK manufacturers could benefit from a £16m expansion of the Made Smarter Adoption programme that the Chancellor announced in her recent budget. The funding will be used to expand the programme to cover the whole of England in 2025-26.
The programme offers access to technology advice, leadership, and skills training, as well as grant funding for digital internships and technology projects. The new funding will help to boost productivity, growth, create high-value jobs and decarbonise SME manufacturers across the country.
Since Made Smarter was launched in North West England in 2019, around 2,500 manufacturers have benefitted. The scheme has funded 379 technology projects, which are predicted to create more than 1,700 new jobs, upskill 3,200 existing roles, and expand the economy by £267m over the coming three years. In 2022, the programme was extended to four other regions – the North East, Yorkshire and the Humber, the West Midlands and East Midlands – and a locally funded programme was launched in the West of England.
Brian Holliday, who co-chairs the Made Smarter Commission and is MD of Siemens Digital Industries, says that the budget announcements on the Made Smarter Adoption and Innovation programmes “are a tremendously positive acknowledgement of the impact that Made Smarter is having on UK manufacturing. I am particularly pleased the programme has been supported by successive governments, helping to stimulate longer-term thinking and long-term growth – now backed up by an emerging Industrial Strategy.
“Manufacturing leaders need Made Smarter, which has become the best-known start-point and signposting service for the sector in support of productivity, competitiveness and sustainability improvement at scale,” he adds.
“Over the last five years Made Smarter has transformed countless SME manufacturers, introducing them to new technologies and new digital skills,” says Donna Edwards, director of Made Smarter’s North West adoption scheme. “The programme has proven that by offering businesses specialist advice to help them select the right approach, level of investment and tools for their business, they can grow and build resilience.
“I am delighted that the Government recognised the impact that Made Smarter is having on the digital transformation of such a vital sector of the economy,” she adds. “While we await further details on the funding package, the commitment to a national roll-out is a major positive to emerge from a Budget which promises to rebuild Britain and puts UK Industry at the heart of that change.”
The Budget also laid out plans for a modern Industrial Strategy, up to £37m of funding to extend the Made Smarter Innovation programme during 2025-26, and long-term funding for growth-driving sectors, including more than £2bn for the automotive sector and £975m for aerospace.
♦ Plans to expand the Made Smarter scheme were first announced by the former Chancellor Jeremy Hunt in 2023 as part of £4.5bn of funding for British manufacturing. He also said that the Government was working with the devolved administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to explore making the programme UK-wide from 2026-27.
