The state of small-batch manufacturing, 2026.

01 — Summary

Four hundred and twelve small-batch manufacturers responded, employing between two and forty people each. Sixty-one percent grew revenue in the twelve months to March, but only nineteen percent grew headcount — the gap is the whole story of this report.

Where growth happened it came from price, not volume. The median workshop put prices up eleven percent and lost four percent of orders doing it.

02 — Demand

Demand for repairable, locally made goods has not softened. What has changed is the customer's tolerance for lead time: the median acceptable wait fell from fourteen weeks to nine.

Workshops that publish a live lead time on their site convert at nearly twice the rate of those that ask people to enquire.

03 — Labour

Recruitment is the binding constraint. Sixty-eight percent of respondents tried to hire a skilled maker in the last year; thirty-one percent succeeded.

Apprenticeships are the only route that showed improvement, and only in workshops with more than eight staff — below that, nobody has the time to teach.

Sixty-eight percent tried to hire. Thirty-one percent managed it.

04 — Materials

Timber and steel prices stabilised, but minimum order quantities from mills rose sharply, which pushes working capital onto exactly the businesses least able to carry it.

Buying groups are the obvious answer and almost nobody is in one.

05 — Digital

Half of all respondents still take orders by email and a spreadsheet. Of the half that do not, the single most common tool is a Webflow site with a Stripe checkout and no inventory system at all — which, at this scale, is the correct answer.

06 — Outlook

The businesses that will still be here in five years are the ones that raised prices early, published their lead times honestly, and hired one person before they could comfortably afford to.