Our strategic focus

Like a 24-hour production line, the manufacturing sector never stands still. It’s constantly evolving, using new knowledge, innovations and technologies to make things better, faster, cheaper and greener.

At the AMRC, we’re concentrating our expertise and resources on the three key sectors where we believe the greatest impact can be made: aerospace, defence, and nuclear energy. Our goal is to drive global competitiveness, accelerate industrial transformation and build the skilled workforce required for the future and prosperity of UK manufacturing.

We are committed to delivering a clear return on investment, ensuring reputational value and demonstrating industry leadership for everyone we work with, from SMEs to our foundational partners including the University of Sheffield, High Value Manufacturing (HVM) Catapult and our industrial members.

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Delivering real-world impact

We tackle complex manufacturing challenges across the entire engineering lifecycle by drawing on our 11 core technology capabilities. Our research and innovation deliver measurable economic and industrial value across the UK. Every year, we help manufacturers transform their operations, adopt advanced technologies and create high-value jobs.

  • Working with industry: We work with more than 1,000 businesses each year to solve complex manufacturing challenges.
  • Supporting small and medium enterprises: We supported 734 SMEs to adopt innovation, boost productivity and access new markets in 2025/26.
  • Driving regional growth: Our work has attracted 2,500 jobs to the South Yorkshire manufacturing cluster.
  • Commercialising research: We have launched six spinout companies to turn cutting-edge research into high-growth commercial ventures.

Strategic objectives

  • Accelerate transformation: Drive global competitiveness across UK manufacturing.
  • Build future talent: Inspire and train the workforce needed for tomorrow’s industry.
  • Engineering solutions: Solve complex manufacturing challenges using our full engineering lifecycle and 11 core capabilities.
  • Workplace culture: Foster a healthy, motivated and collaborative environment where people thrive.

Aerospace

Commercial aerospace faces aggressive ‘net zero by 2050’ targets alongside massive order backlogs currently exceeding 14,800 aircraft. Meeting these demands requires an urgent shift toward lightweighting through advanced composites, novel metallic processing and near-net-shape manufacturing.

Our focus is on providing the first class manufacturing innovation required for next-generation aerospace adoption. Through world-leading facilities like COMPASS, we are demonstrating high-rate composite manufacturing alongside wider technology capabilities in rotor design and manufacture for electric motors, subtractive and additive manufacturing. Crucially, we are leading the shift toward virtual certification, AI-driven design and high-fidelity digital twins to eliminate physical prototyping and accelerate aircraft delivery.

Defence and national security

Geopolitical instability and supply chain vulnerabilities mean the UK defence sector requires urgent industrial resilience, surge readiness and home-grown manufacturing capability.

The AMRC works with the global industrial supply chain, from SMEs through to the primes, acting as a trusted delivery partner, turning policy ambition and emerging technologies into deployable sovereign capability.

We carry out research and innovation that is in line with the Ministry of Defenceʼs (MoD) strategy, including working with NATO countries, helping defence organisations solve industrial problems that matter to readiness, resilience and scale. Our focus centres on advanced manufacturing, materials and prototyping; digital engineering, model-based engineering secure digital thread; and accelerating Technology Readiness Level (TRL) pull-through.

By embedding secure operating frameworks, we enable high-classification delivery while helping SMEs qualify and scale up, strengthening critical defence supply chains.

Nuclear and clean energy

Delivering the UK’s 24 GWe nuclear mandate by 2050 - and powering energy-dense AI data centres - requires repeatable, high-productivity manufacturing.

As the UK's lead R&D partner for nuclear manufacturing innovation, we bridge the gap between early-stage academic research and commercial execution, translating low-TRL breakthroughs into scalable, industrial-grade nuclear manufacturing.

We de-risk multi-billion-pound investments using full scale (1:1) facilities capable of heavy-section manufacturing trials for components up to 100 tonnes; provide real-time sensing and analytics for assurance and traceability; and non-destructive evaluation (NDE) to support lifecycle performance, maintainability and regulatory confidence.

As a neutral technical integrator supporting Great British Energy - Nuclear (GBE-N), we have strategic partnerships with Rolls-Royce SMR, UKAEA (STEP), and EDF Energy across fission and fusion programmes; and our ‘Factory-in-a-Box’ model gives SMEs transferable digital templates and clear qualification pathways and process templates to enter nuclear supply chains with confidence.