The UK's changing economy

De-industrialisation is the decline of manufacturing. According to the Office for National Statistics, manufacturing fell from 36% of the UK economy in 1948 to around 10% by 2013.

Why?

• Globalisation: goods could be made more cheaply abroad, where wages are lower, and shipped back.
• Mechanisation: machines and robots replaced many factory workers.
• Government policy: in the 1980s, the government privatised industries and closed many coal mines, and later chose to attract services and investment.
• Competition from fast-growing economies, such as China.

Many industrial areas, such as South Wales and the North East, lost thousands of jobs.

The UK is now a post-industrial economy: most people work in services, not factories. In 2016, services made up 80% of the UK economy (ONS).

Growing industries include:

• information technology and software;
• finance, insurance and law, especially in London;
• research and development, such as medicines;
• the creative industries, such as film, games and music.

The quaternary sector, jobs in research, information and high-tech services, is growing fastest. Manufacturing still matters, but in high-tech products, such as aircraft parts and cars.

Science parks are groups of research and high-tech companies, usually near a university, sharing its ideas and skilled graduates. Business parks hold offices, shops and warehouses.

They are usually on the edge of cities, where land is cheaper and there is space to park, with good access to motorways and airports, in attractive, green settings.

For example: Cambridge Science Park, founded by Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1970, was the UK's first science park. Its first company moved in in 1973. Companies there work in fields such as medicines and computing, near the University of Cambridge.

Torr Quarry, in the Mendip Hills of Somerset, is one of the UK's largest limestone quarries. Its crushed stone is used for roads and building, much of it in south-east England.

It shows how industry can reduce its environmental impact:

• Rail: much of the stone leaves by train, on the quarry's own rail link, rather than by lorry, cutting traffic, noise and emissions on local roads.
• Landscaping: about 60 of its 205 hectares have been landscaped, with banks of earth and trees, to blend into the countryside and screen the workings.
• Restoration: when quarrying ends, plans are for the quarry to flood, making a lake for wildlife and recreation.