Industrial Strategy 2025: What it means for the Robotics Sector
The UK Government’s Modern Industrial Strategy sets out a 10-year plan to boost business investment and support the growth of strategic industries. While there are references to Robotics technologies throughout, it’s the Advanced Manufacturing Sector Plan in which the most substantial and consequential announcements in this area are made.
techUK’s take
The Advanced Manufacturing Sector Plan lays the foundations for the UK to lead on robotics research and development, committing £2.8 billion for R&D over the next 5 years, and investing £29 million a year to 2030 in the Made Smarter Innovation initiative (which includes collaborative R&D projects for robots and smart factories). The Plan also seeks to boost the adoption of robotics technologies through expanding the Made Smarter Adoption programme for SMEs and committing £40 million in initial funding for a new UK-wide network of Robotics Adoption Hubs with the expertise, equipment, and connections to accelerate firms’ take-up of robotics.
These initiatives are supported by welcome reforms to the business environment, regulatory changes to boost growth in frontier industries (including by introducing a clear route to market for new pioneering vehicles and utilising the Regulatory Innovation Office) and the expansion of access to finance.
However, there is still more government could do to boost the development and adoption of robotics, including potentially recognising robotics as a seventh frontier technology and incorporating a much greater focus on robotics in sectors beyond Advanced Manufacturing, in particular Digital and Technologies. This would ensure that the benefits of robotics technologies can be most effectively scaled and applied across sectors and throughout the UK, subsequently driving growth and productivity.
Overview of key announcements
In the Industrial Strategy, government identified the 8 sectors that have the greatest growth potential over the next decade and a critical role to play in supporting economic security and resilience, net zero and regional growth.
Each has a bespoke Sector Plan, developed with industry, setting out a vision of the sector’s transformation by 2035.
Government has published 5 of the Sector Plans, with Life Sciences, Defence and Financial Services to follow.
The following two Sector Plans, both of which have now been published, appear to be highly relevant to the robotics sector:
Advanced Manufacturing Sector Plan
The Advanced Manufacturing Sector Plan commits to:
- Harnessing the latest technologies in the Advanced Manufacturing sector through £4.3 billion in funding, including up to £2.8 billion in R&D programmes over the next 5 years to spur innovation, automation, digitisation and commercialisation.
- Accelerating the uptake of robotics and ‘lean processes’ through an expansion of the Made Smarter Adoption programme for SMEs and initial funding of £40 million for a new network of physical Robotics Adoption Hubs across the UK with the expertise, equipment, and connections to accelerate firms’ take-up of robotics.
- Scaling up innovation and automation through Made Smarter Innovation (MSI), which delivers collaborative R&D projects and industry-focused research in the field of Industrial Digital Technologies (IDTs) – including AI, 3D printing, ‘smart factories’ and Robotics. This features easily adoptable use cases for these cutting-edge technologies, including SMEs.
- Reforming the business environment so that the Advanced Manufacturing sector has the long-term certainty, stability and ease of doing business to, among other things, scale up innovation and automation, with increased deployment of state-of-the-art technologies, industrial robotics, AI, digital twins, and Internet of Things.
- Making targeted regulatory changes to boost growth in frontier industries, including by bringing the Automated Vehicles Act fully into force and creating a clear route to market for new pioneering vehicles, including delivery robots.
Digital and Technologies Sector Plan
The Digital and Technologies Sector Plan commits to reforming the business environment so that the sector can benefit from reformed regulation and standards, including through the new Regulatory Innovation Office (RIO) which will make the UK the best place in the world to commercialise technologies and innovation.
techUK welcomed the inclusion of ‘Connected and autonomous technology’ as one of RIO’s four initial focus areas when the institution was launched in October 2024.
A third Sector Plan, still to be published, is also expected to be highly relevant to the robotics sector:
Defence Sector Plan
The Industrial Strategy states that the Defence Sector Plan in the forthcoming Defence Industrial Strategy will set out how the sector prioritises frontier industries critical to security and growth. Some of these will inevitably relate to robotics, including frontier industries such as Drones and Autonomous Systems (acknowledging the UK’s strengths in robotics, drones, autonomy, and human-machine teaming).
Beyond these three Sector Plans, there are also specific chapters within the Industrial Strategy that contain announcements relating to the robotics sector. These include ‘driving and supporting innovation’ and ‘access to finance’, both of which are below.
Driving and supporting innovation
The Industrial Strategy aims to shift the dial on technology adoption across the economy by:
- Expanding proven interventions such as the Made Smarter Adoption programme. A commitment of up to £99 million from 2026 will support a further 5,500 manufacturing SMEs to take up new technologies.
- Expanding the model to create a dedicated scheme for the Professional and Business Services sector, introducing demonstration programmes to enhance technology confidence and use across businesses. This will be achieved, for example, by establishing new adoption hubs for robotics.
- Continuing to utilise the Advanced Research + Invention Agency (ARIA)’s focus on high-risk, high-reward projects to connect emerging research opportunities with investors, providing infrastructure to prototype new inventions and nurturing talent through fellowships. One of ARIA’s opportunity spaces is in Robot Dexterity, a £57 million programme that aims to transform robotic capabilities and unlock a step change in human productivity.
Access to finance
There are several commitments in the Industrial Strategy to expand access to finance, including:
- Building on the commercial expertise of the market through the British Business Bank, with increased capacity and capability, plus £4 billion additional capital for the IS-8
- Expanding the mandate of the National Wealth Fund to deploy its £27.8 billion capitalisation to support growth. One of the NWF’s priority sectors is Advanced Manufacturing, which includes robotics and automation. techUK recently held a roundtable with the NWF and industry to identify the main funding gaps and explore potential solutions
- Bringing forward legislation to increase the maximum size of UK Export Finance’s financial portfolio
These are underpinned by an £86 billion investment into UK R&D, targeted towards the IS-8, leveraging private investment in cutting-edge research, technologies, and commercial applications.
Other announcements of relevance to robotics
- The ambition to improve the UK’s position in global battery manufacturing across robotics and a range of other sectors, including automotive, aerospace, maritime, defence, rail, and stationary energy storage. This will involve increasing domestic production in line with demand, both in energy capacity (GWh per year) and also in diversity of cell format, chemistry, and application.
- New adoption-focused support for UK agri-tech to target precision technologies that champion the application of controlled environments, robotics and automation, advanced sensors, AI and data systems in both the domestic and global markets.
You can check out techUK's Industrial Strategy Hub here.
Next steps
The time is now to double-down on robotics R&D, accelerate progress in streamlining regulations and boosting access to finance, and enable firms (in particular SMEs) to adopt robotics technologies across UK sectors and regions.
techUK will continue to convene Government, industry and academia to work through key challenges and opportunities faced by the UK’s robotics sector, in particular those identified in the Industrial Strategy and its associated Sector Plans.
This will be done through our ongoing Robotics & Automation sprint campaign, which is exploring how the UK can lead on the development, application and commercialisation of robotic & automation technologies. techUK’s activity in robotics will continue beyond this, with a regular cadence of events, thought leadership, and more.
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Rory joined techUK in June 2023 after three years in the Civil Service on its Fast Stream leadership development programme.
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Rory joined techUK in June 2023 after three years in the Civil Service on its Fast Stream leadership development programme.
During this time, Rory worked on the Government's response to Covid-19 (NHS Test & Trace), school funding strategy (Department for Education) and international climate and nature policy (Cabinet Office). He also tackled the social care crisis whilst on secondment to techUK's Health and Social Care programme in 2022.
Before this, Rory worked in the House of Commons and House of Lords alongside completing degrees in Political Economy and Global Politics.
Today, Rory leads techUK's emerging technologies activity across everything from immersive, web3, AI and robotics to space, gaming & metaverse.
This involves co-running techUK's flagship Innovation campaign, managing four series (including the 'Meet the Innovators' interview series), and launching 4-6-month 'sprint campaigns' on transformative technologies and sectors.
- Email:
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Rory joined techUK in June 2023 after three years in the Civil Service on its Fast Stream leadership development programme.
During this time, Rory worked on the Government's response to Covid-19 (NHS Test & Trace), school funding strategy (Department for Education) and international climate and nature policy (Cabinet Office). He also tackled the social care crisis whilst on secondment to techUK's Health and Social Care programme in 2022.
Before this, Rory worked in the House of Commons and House of Lords alongside completing degrees in Political Economy and Global Politics.
Today, Rory leads techUK's emerging technologies activity across everything from immersive, web3, AI and robotics to space, gaming & metaverse.
This involves co-running techUK's flagship Innovation campaign, managing four series (including the 'Meet the Innovators' interview series), and launching 4-6-month 'sprint campaigns' on transformative technologies and sectors.
- Email:
- [email protected]
- LinkedIn:
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/rorydaniels28/
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Rory Daniels
Rory joined techUK in June 2023 after three years in the Civil Service on its Fast Stream leadership development programme.