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Productivity in the Midlands: Trends, Challenges & Solutions

The Midlands Insight Report offers a strategic assessment of the region’s productivity landscape, highlighting key challenges and proposing practical solutions. Leveraging local insights and recent data, this report provides policymakers with a roadmap to foster resilience and long-term growth.

The Midlands faces several pressing productivity challenges, including workforce and skills shortages, infrastructure and connectivity gaps, regional economic disparities, and underinvestment in R&D. Persistent skills gaps in high-demand areas, such as manufacturing and digital technology, limit the region’s growth potential, while inadequate transport and digital infrastructure constrain economic mobility. Additionally, the Midlands grapples with an economic structure that leans heavily on traditional industries, creating disparities between urban and rural areas and hindering balanced growth. Recent global disruptions have further highlighted the region’s vulnerability to economic uncertainty and underscored the need for cohesive policy frameworks.

The report presents solutions that tackle these issues holistically. To address workforce shortages, it recommends expanding vocational training, reskilling programs, and lifelong learning initiatives aligned with high-growth sectors. For infrastructure and connectivity gaps, the report advocates for targeted investments to improve transport and digital networks, particularly in underserved areas, ensuring better access to jobs and services. R&D and innovation capacity can be bolstered through increased funding and incentives for private-sector participation, particularly within collaborative R&D hubs that connect industry with regional universities. Policy and institutional alignment across combined and independent authorities of the region will help deliver consistent support for businesses, with a focus on equipping SMEs to embrace digital and technological advancements. Finally, the report calls for strengthened supply chain resilience through greater integration, regional logistics hubs, and initiatives to reduce dependence on international sources.

Authors Arman Mazhikeyev, Jan Godsell, Nigel Driffield, Jonathan Duck, Thomas Triebs

Themes

  • Productivity Studies

Published

27/01/2025

Cite

A. Mazhikeyev, J. Godsell, N. Driffield, J. Duck, and T. Triebs (2025) Productivity in the Midlands: Trends, Challenges & Solutions, Productivity Insights Paper No. 050, The Productivity Institute.

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