Why is electronics so important to our economy?
Electronics is pervasive and underpins virtually every other sector of economic activity.
It is a key enabling technology in every other sector approx. 30 per cent of Cost of Goods Sold (COGS) in most sectors.
Its traditional markets are changing and this may provide the seeds for innovation.
It is key to the convergence of traditional sectors (e.g. media and communications) and emergence of non-traditional sectors (e.g. energy, transport, financial services).
20 per cent of the ex-factory cost of a typical product in any sector is electronic (source EIGT).
The UK is home to over 40 per cent of Europe's independent electronic design community - by turnover and number of design houses (source Future Horizons and EIGT).
The UK electronics industry employs over 250,000 people in the UK in more than 11,000 workplaces (Source:SEMTA).
The UK electronics industry is worth £23 billion a year, the fifth largest in the world. (Source: Department for Business, Enterprise, and Regulatory Reform).
Electronics make: cars more reliable, aircraft safer, energy more efficient, homes more comfortable, entertainment more colourful, manufacturing processes more manageable, quality standards more accurate, oil and gas more available, healthcare more effective, communications more capable, photography more versatile, information more available, music clearer, travel wider, data movement faster. In fact everything is better because of electronics, the technology that has changed, and will continue to change, the world we live in.
Message from Harry Tee - Chairman of the Electronics Leadership Council
The ELC have developed the Electronics Strategic Plan which will provide the framework for their ongoing activities. Click here for a PDF version.
The Electronics Leadership Council
Shaping the future of UK electronics Report 2007
Click here for a PDF version of the report
The UKEA pulls together the diverse group of trade associations within the electronics sector. Visit their website for more information on the membership and their activities.
Has your company registered with the Electronics Knowledge Transfer Network?
Visit their website to find out more.
Welcome to the website of the Electronics Leadership Council (ELC).
The creation of the Council was a central recommendation of the Electronics Innovation and Growth Team's (EIGT) 2004 report, Electronics 2015 - making a Visible Difference. We have accepted the key role of driving forward and developing the report's business-led agenda for the future of electronics in the UK. We exist to provide strategic leadership for the UK electronics industry, supporting greater innovation and creativity and sustaining future growth and profitability both domestically and internationally.
As envisioned by the EIGT we are a relatively small group of senior business people from the electronics industry who represent a range of skills, experience and disciplines across the sector. The ELC members are drawn from companies and organisations operating in the UK electronics industry and were nominated by their companies or by key stakeholders.
I believe that we have now assembled people with an excellent mix of skills and experience to address our agenda.
As you go through this site you will see that we have established workstreams to take forward the strategic EIGT recommendations. We are also establishing relationships with other industry stakeholders to ensure that the remaining recommendations are taken forward in a way that will result in a positive difference for the industry.
We are all agreed that we should not seek to duplicate activities already working well elsewhere, and that while we might provide the glue to give critical mass to, or enhance, existing activities where a more strategic input is needed, we will always seek to add value and make a visible difference. This is how we expect the industry to judge us on our success.
Harry Tee
Chairman
Electronics Leadership Council