The competitiveness of the UK aerospace industry

Abstract

Porter's five competitive forces model provides an analytical framework for assessing the UK aerospace industry's competitiveness in this article. Various statistical indicators are used to measure competitiveness, based on published data at the industry and firm level, supplemented with information from company interviews. The indicators include productivity, output, firm size, development time-scales, labour hoarding, exports and profitability. The empirical results of this article suggest that, over the period 1980 to 2000, the UK aerospace industry improved its competitiveness compared with the USA and the EU.