The Industry

This Industry section provides a statisticians guide to both the UK and Global Motorsport Industries

The UK is in pole position in the super-fast, technology-driven world of motorsport. It has a wealth of motorsport companies whose precision engineering and advanced technology skills are increasingly exploited by the mainstream automotive industry. Increasingly other sectors seeking solutions to high tech, performance engineering issues are attracted by the “can do”, swift to market culture embedded in this Industry.

The largest concentration of UK motorsport firms is to be found within “Motorsport Valley®”, an area located within the UK and centred around the city of Oxford. But the UK is a small country and successful firms supplying the global Industry are to be found throughout, in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. They supply the cutting edge technology used in Formula One and dominate component production to many of the world’s leading categories.

Recognised as an unparalleled “community of knowledge”, Motorsport Valley® attracts OEMs and the leading teams involved in international motorsport to harness the race-bred Research & Development and prototyping capabilities, high-tolerance engineering skills and next generation technology for the development of modern road vehicles and to find “the competitive edge”. Many have forged partnerships within the Valley to facilitate and provide continuity to that process. So too, have companies within other sectors, Aerospace, Marine and Defence, as they seek to accelerate the problem solving process.

The companies found within this Motorsport “cluster” provide performance engineering solutions and act as a global centre for the production of performance cars, chassis, engines, brakes, suspension and transmission systems, telemetry as well as a wide range of other world-class products together with a complete range of services and facilities. 

Approximately 4,500 companies are involved in the UK Motorsport and Performance Engineering Industry and its wide-ranging support activities. The Industry has an annual turnover of ₤6.0 billion, with £3.6 billion exported.

The creative side - involving events management, public relations, marketing, sponsorship and a host of other support functions, accounts for approximately ₤1.7 billion of the yearly Industry total. UK Motorsport supports 38,500 full and part-time jobs, including 25,000 engineers.

In Formula One, the technical pinnacle of motor racing across the globe, all the constructors with the exception of  BMW-Sauber, Ferrari,Toro Rosso and Toyota, are based in the UK. Major OEMs have close links with all the constructors, involving investments worth tens of millions of pounds a year.

The big car-makers want their brands to be linked with the enormous and popular success of Grand Prix racing, which attracts a vast world-wide audience. They also want to exploit the Motorsport Industry’s huge investment in advanced technology for the development of a new generation of road vehicles...Motorsport provides the laboratory of the future.

Over the years mainstream manufacturers have established partnerships in most forms of Motorsport. In Formula One, many have secured stock options with Renault, Honda and BMW taking over established teams and Mercedes, an influence demanding share option with McLaren. All have investments in other categories of the sport, most notably Honda in Indycar Racing, Toyota in NASCAR, Renault in several junior single seater formulae and soon, Ferrari in the supply of chassis and power units to A1GP.

Motorsport Valley is renowned throughout the automotive industry. British motorsport companies in the ‘Valley’ have made the UK a global centre of excellence for high performance automotive engineering. In the last few years, the major car manufacturers have fully realised the value of being associated with the global popularity of Motorsport in all its forms and the transfer of its advanced technology into the mainstream Automotive Industry.