Key findings:<\/p>\n
New export orders rise at quickest pace in four and-a-half years
\nBusiness sentiment stays close to January’s recent
\nhigh<\/p>\n
Comment:<\/p>\n
Rob Dobson, Director at S&P Global Market Intelligence\n<\/p>\n
\u201cUK manufacturing has made an encouraging start to
\n2026. Output rose at the quickest pace in 17 months
\nduring February, building on a solid upturn in January,
\nas companies enjoy rising intakes of new work from both
\nthe home and overseas markets. Growth of new export
\nbusiness hit a four-and-a-half year high, as improving
\nclient confidence in markets such as North America,
\nmainland China, the EU and Middle East led to new
\ncontract wins.\n<\/p>\n
“The outlook also remains positive. Business optimism
\namong manufacturers stayed close to January’s recent
\nhigh, with close to three-fifths of all companies expecting
\nto expand production during the coming year. New
\nproduct launches, rising client confidence and planned
\ninvestments are all forecast to help generate growth over
\nthe next year, offsetting some of the caution companies
\nare still exhibiting due to recent government policy
\nchanges and ongoing geopolitical uncertainty, especially
\nin relation to US tariffs.\n<\/p>\n
“Although the promising start to the year and positive
\nexpectations for the future are not yet fully reflected in
\nthe labour market, there are signs of stabilisation on the
\njobs front too. The rate of decline in staffing levels was
\nonly mild in February and eased to the weakest during the
\ncurrent 16-month jobs downturn.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Key findings: New export orders rise at quickest pace in four and-a-half years Business sentiment stays close to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27074,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[72,113,61,60],"class_list":{"0":"post-325052","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-economy","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325052","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=325052"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325052\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27074"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=325052"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=325052"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=325052"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}