MSc IB Major Research Project: Outline the industry or market that you want to research and investigate.

The United Kingdom’s automotive manufacturing sector is one of the most important economic pillars of the UK. The automotive industry is of great importance to the UK’s financial sector in which it contributes to more than £202 billion with 12.8% of exports in automotive goods (Bailey and Propris, 2017). The sector’s engineering and manufacturing heritage has created thousands of skilled jobs, driving exports, and attract foreign investments in the economy (SMMT, 2019). Through the European Union, the industry achieved friendly priorities such as tariff-free trade, free-flow of automotive goods within member countries, and free trade agreements. These priorities benefited the UK’s automotive companies by lowering business costs in exporting, importing, and access to raw materials (De Ruyter, 2019). However, the exit of Britain from the European Union has led to negative impacts on the United Kingdom’s automotive industry (SMMT, 2019).

This research focuses on the issues that face the industry in the result of Britain’s exit from the European Union (EU) and how they affect the progress of this industry. Brexit has led to various complexities in the United Kingdom’s automotive industry. The UK automotive industry is one of the most affected sectors by Britain’s decision to exit from the European Union leading to the increase in importing costs for manufacturing components, vehicle registration, export’s competitiveness, and low labour flexibility (SMMT, 2017). In response to this problem, the research proposes to investigate various strategies in the automotive sector in the UK can take to combat these issues.

This research intends to use secondary data from various information sources that include government periodicals and reports, scholarly article reviews, research articles published by automotive organisations and scholars as well as newspaper articles. The information will be easily accessible and readily available through different credible and scholarly sources accessed through internet websites and online databases such as National Bureau of Economic Research and EconBiz that provide access to current information based on the searched topics and subjects.

References

Bailey, D. and Propris, L., 2017. Brexit and the UK Automotive Industry. National Institute Economic Review. 242(1), pp.51-59.

De Ruyter, A., Salh, S., Shishank, S., Bailey, D. and Guy, J., 2019. Brexit and the UK automotive industry: understanding the impact. Birmingham City University.

SMMT, 2017. UK automotive and the UK economy. Available at https://www.smmt.co.uk/industry-topics/economy/uk-automotive-and-the-uk-economy/ [Accessed Mar. 30, 2019].

SMMT, 2019. Brexit. Available at https://www.smmt.co.uk/industry-topics/economy/uk-automotive-and-the-uk-economy/ [Accessed Mar. 30, 2019].