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Nearly seven in 10 (68 %) UK manufacturers suffered unplanned downtime in the past year, costing the sector up to £736 million every week, capital the industry cannot afford to lose. Downtime is not only frequent and prolonged, but also reflects vulnerabilities that threaten profitability, competitiveness, and board-level resilience.
That is according to research published by the Fluke Corporation. Other findings include:
- Nearly half (46%) report 6–10 downtime incidents weekly, while 15% face 11–20 incidents weekly.
- 45% say outages last up to 12 hours; 17% report incidents stretching to 72 hours.
- At an average cost of £1.36M per hour, a single incident can equal up to £49M in losses: the equivalent of powering 3,900 factories for a week.
The research, conducted by Censuswide, surveyed more than 600 senior decision-makers and maintenance professionals in the U.S., the UK, and Germany. Among those affected, frequency is alarming: combined results show that 48% report 6–10 incidents each week, and nearly one in five (19%) face 11–20 weekly incidents. The impact is then compounded by duration, with 45 percent of respondents saying outages last up to 12 hours, while a further 15% experience incidents up to 72 hours.
While these numbers are fairly consistent across the three regions, there is a staggering difference in the cost implications. At an average of £1.36M per hour, the cost of a single incident in both the UK and Germany can reach up to £49M in losses, compared to the global average of £1.27M per hour and £31.9M per incident. These findings indicate that downtime is a globally recurring operational reality and a board-level risk to profitability and resilience – yet they also highlight a crisis that is costing UK manufacturers far more than their U.S. counterparts, underscoring a critical gap in Europe’s resilience.
On a global level, the risks are more acute within large enterprises, as amongst organisations with more than 50,000 employees, 40% report experiencing 11–20 downtime incidents each week, and half (50 %) endure up to 72 hours per incident.
This highlights an urgent need to accelerate strategies that reduce downtime and strengthen operational continuity. Despite the scale of the risk, however, the industry remains fragmented in its response. The findings show that UK manufacturers are scattering digital investments across multiple solutions to build resilience, including predictive maintenance (12%), digital twins (12%), and condition monitoring (13%).
Parker Burke, Group President, said: “Our research paints a sobering picture: manufacturers are caught in a cycle where downtime eats directly into competitiveness, and too many are stuck with fragmented fixes.
“The data makes clear that the frequency, duration, and cost of downtime expose systemic vulnerabilities in maintenance and reliability strategies. What once was viewed as an operational inconvenience has become a risk to enterprise value. Without a clear path to scale digital investments, manufacturers’ efforts risk being spread too thin to deliver meaningful resilience or return.”
He concluded: “The findings underscore the urgent need for manufacturers to rethink reliability not as a maintenance issue, but as a boardroom priority critical to growth, competitiveness, and customer trust.”
- All amounts in GBP have been converted from USD using an exchange rate of 0.75 on 23rd October 2025
