The government’s 2025 industrial strategy (IS-8) sets out a clear ambition to drive productivity, innovation, and globally competitive growth across eight priority sectors. As we outline in the Chamber’s annual Business Manifesto (2026), the Thames Valley has evidential strengths in no less than five of the IS-8 sectors (advanced manufacturing, creative, defence, digital technologies, and life sciences) and is already delivering strongly against these goals, underpinned by an innovation-led, IP-rich, and service-focused economy.
With more than 47,000 active businesses operating in IS-8 sectors, generating around £258bn in turnover and employing over 780,000 people, the region’s economic profile closely mirrors the intent of the strategy. Its strength lies not in traditional heavy industry, but in entrepreneurial SMEs, fast-growing scale-ups and globally connected firms built around knowledge, technology, and expertise.
Highlighting how UK’s true-turbo economy shows what an innovation‑driven industrial strategy looks like in practice. Concluding, in this article Andy Cowie, Partner at James Cowper Kreston, outlines how the regions align with IS‑8 and how the Thames Valley firmly sits within the government’s IS-8 framework and how, with the right support to ease infrastructure and talent constraints, the Thames Valley is well positioned to remain a pillar of the UK’s industrial future, and a model for innovation-led growth across other regions.
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