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The Changing Structure of the UK Economy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 March 2020

George F. Ray
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Extract

The structural pattern of the economy is changing all the time. It has changed considerably in the past ten years (table 1), partly because of the emergence of oil production, but partly also because industries that previously constituted the mainstay of the UK economy—like steel, coal, textiles and mechanical engineering—have declined in importance whilst others, for example electronics and chemicals, have become the driving force of industry and certain types of services have grown out of all proportion to the national economy as a whole. This point can be illustrated by the fact that in the ten years to 1983 manufacturing output fell by 15 per cent, while at the same time the output of all services increased quite markedly and one section, banking, financial, business and professional services, insurance and leasing, grew by some 70 per cent.

Type
Research Article
Information
National Institute Economic Review , Volume 118 , November 1986 , pp. 82 - 88
Copyright
Copyright © 1986 National Institute of Economic and Social Research

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References

(1) The ‘electrical’ industries include electronics, instruments, office machinery and data processing equipment, apart from the traditional electrical industries.

(2) This includes banking, financial institutions, insurance, leasing, business and professional services.

(3) As in table 4, page 62.

(1) The Department of Energy forecast in its recent Brown Book (‘Development of the oil and gas resources of the UK, 1986, p. 96) 85-115 million tonnes production for 1990.

(1) In the specific case of pharmaceuticals, the recently introduced new NHS regulations—limiting doctors' prescription rights for certain high- value drugs—may have some impact, according to the trade, on the R & D activity of pharmaceutical companies.