To ask where our money comes from in UK?

[timegoesbysoso]

I keep hearing of the need to make buildings net zero, how it will create new jobs. How AI will revolutionise the country and so on. Lots of plans for expenditure.

But how do we make money? I have no clue about this? We don't seem to have any products to sell or any manufacturing etc

It can't just be massive money laundering (joking, I think).

Anyone know?

If you are talking about government income, most is tax.

ifs.org.uk/taxlab/taxlab-key-questions/where-does-government-get-its-money#:~:text=Most%20UK%20government%20revenue%20is%20from%20tax,-In%202023–24&text=Read%20more%20(GDP,period%20(usually%20a%20year).

"We don't make anything in this country" - or so goes the constant refrain.

Last time I looked we were the 8th largest country for manufacturing and the 2nd largest in high-tech manufacturing.

People who think that there is no manufacturing in this country obviously don’t live in the midlands or up north

No manufacturing? Where I live is the centre for furniture manufacturing in the country and employs a lot of local people.

Yep. It's manufacturing central where I live on the Nottinghamshire/Derbyshire border!

Loads in Solihull and Birmingham too

What do we make though? The only thing in my house that's made relatively recently I'm pretty sure is my mattress. And maybe an armchair. I'd love to buy more British-made things.

Finance. Lots of money being paid for services in the city of London

Section 3

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/uk-trade-in-numbers/uk-trade-in-numbers-web-version

Banking, finance, higher education, pharmaceuticals, professional business services, tech (london is a big hub for startups), retail
.

We are a service economy mainly with a. Small manufacturing sector

Well, they used to before Brexit anyway.

Cultural exports like J.K. Rowling and our film industry
Education - when foreign students come to study here and pay fees as well as spending thousands of pounds to live here they are like part of our export earnings, which people who don’t like universities tend to forget.

Wow!

Look at the relative value of ‘services’ and ‘financial services’ compared to export trade.

London is still in the top 4 financial centres, probably still second.

Dh works in banking and got offered a job in frankfurt after and declined (mainly because of me) . Most people did the same. Thats the thing, you cant steal all of London 's business unless the employees want to move to Europe and most don't because their kids are settled in school here and because they want an English speaking work environment and lets face it London is much more vibran than frankfurt.

Tourism

Breakdown of uk employment by sector is also an indication.

And have never watched 'Inside the Factory'.

Steel
Component parts
Things you don't even realise - packaging, we make A LOT of packaging, and that's increasing as people turn away from china. But why would you ever realise that we make that unless you buy it?

Jewellery,
Food
Beverages,
Cars
Solar panels

Etc.etc.

Etc etc

Well, food processing is the largest manufacturing sector and I'm sure that you must have some of that in your house. After that it's motor vehicles, machinery and plant (jet engines are a big part of this), industrial chemicals, petroleum products, and pharmaceuticals.

In terms of exports its all of the above except the food, which is mostly for the home market.

Aluminium, cars (lots of)

Some sea food more is exported to Spain and other places than we eat here in some varieties

We also make and sell a lot of computer games, music, films.

The U.K. actually has a large and fairly diversified economy,

We have people coming here to visit, we have farms that make and sell food, we have food brands and household items made here - soap, washing powder, ready meals etc etc.

We don't have a lot of the heavy industry that we used to - coal, steel etc - but a lot of that is now mechanised and needs much fewer people.

The London stock exchange used to be the biggest, but no longer.

I am not saying that there are now no financial services, just that billions has been wiped off the value that we used to sell (see government's own statistics). You are very fortunate to have remained employed. I worked at one of the larger investment banks, and when they moved thousands of jobs to other parts of Europe, those who didn't want to go were made redundant.

Nobody was stealing any business. Brexit made it much more difficult and expensive to trade with the UK. It didn't help that there was such a lengthy period of time between voting to leave and actually leaving while the idiots ran around like headless chickens government tried to work out what sort of deal minimised the impact.

This was a huge period of risk for the financial institutions, and we all know how much financial institutions like risk. So they controlled it by moving jobs abroad.

It’s manufacturing, exporting, services, tourism, tv and film industry, loads of things. Despite what you here we do manufacture a lot of stuff and we sell a lot of services IT, legal etc
wecan also print our own money too

Yup. The arts bring in £10.8 billion pounds to the UK economy. All those big films made using British technicians, actors, writers.