Celebrating the People Behind UK Fashion Manufacturing

National Manufacturing Day on 24th September is an opportunity to celebrate the people, skills and businesses keeping UK manufacturing moving including the fashion and textile manufacturers that remain an important part of Leicester’s industrial identity.

From machinists and pattern cutters to technicians, dyers, finishers and production teams, fashion manufacturing depends on highly skilled people who turn ideas and raw materials into finished garments and textiles. Leicester has a particularly strong connection to this story. The city and wider region remain home to a significant concentration of textile and clothing businesses, spanning traditional manufacturing skills alongside new technologies, sustainable production methods and innovative approaches to materials and design.

National Manufacturing Day also provides an opportunity to challenge outdated ideas about what manufacturing looks like. Modern factories are not simply rows of machines and production lines. They bring together craftsmanship, technology, problem-solving, creativity and specialist technical knowledge.

That combination of skills is increasingly important as the industry changes. Digitalisation, automation and AI are transforming manufacturing, but experienced people remain essential. Understanding fabric, construction, machinery and how garments behave requires knowledge that can take years to develop.

At the same time, UK manufacturers face an ongoing skills challenge, making apprenticeships, training and opportunities to experience manufacturing first-hand increasingly important. For Leicester’s fashion and textile sector, that means ensuring the knowledge and expertise built up over generations can be passed on to the next generation while giving young people opportunities to develop new technical and digital skills.

It is also an important part of the conversation around a more responsible fashion industry. Building manufacturing capability closer to home can support greater transparency around how products are made, while skilled production can help brands consider quality, longevity, waste and resource use from the outset.

So, on National Manufacturing Day, the focus is not just on the factories themselves. It is on the people behind them; the makers, technicians, engineers, production specialists, educators, apprentices and businesses whose expertise keeps UK manufacturing alive. And in Leicester, that manufacturing story remains very much part of the city’s fashion future.