Umbrella contractors that have clients in export and manufacturing sectors will be pleased to see December’s UK Trade figures and the Index of Production which have been published by the Office for National Statistics. These figures show that manufacturing output increased by 2.1% in December 2011 when compared to the same month the previous year. At the same time, the ‘balance of trade deficit’ in the UK has decreased to its lowest level since April 2003. This is seen as being due to increased exports of both services and goods. In fact, the UK service industry trade surplus was standing at more than £6bn in the last two months of 2011, an output figure which included umbrella contractors who sell their services to clients that are based outside of the UK.

The largest contributions to the year on year rise were from the manufacture of food, beverages and tobacco industries which rose by 6.6% and the manufacture of transport equipment industries which rose by 8.9% - so umbrella contractors working in these sectors have good reason to be optimistic for 2012. In fact the rise in the manufacture of food, beverages and tobacco industries is the strongest since records began in 1948!