Commenting on the report that purchasers in UK manufacturing are experiencing the strongest growth in 15 years, David Noble, chief executive of CIPS, said: “This performance of the UK manufacturing sector is hugely encouraging as it is proving surprisingly resilient. It is now growing at a rate of knots – maintaining the momentum gained in Q1 and faring much better than we could have dared hoped for this time last year. Positively, purchasing managers reported growth across all sub-sectors and in companies of all sizes. What’s more – given that stock levels are still relatively low, this is a trend we anticipate seeing for some time to come as firms work to try and meet increasing sales demand. The real turning point will come when manufacturers feel confident enough to increase their investment and start to build capacity again. The good news is there are already signs this is starting to happen as employment levels are slowly rising on the back of strained capacity and backlogs of work reported for the first time in over a decade,”