Thales in the UK: the story behind the headlines
Recent research has revealed the full contribution that Thales makes to the British economy in our continuing support of UK industrial strategy. Some of the findings might surprise you.
Every day, one way or another, you rely on Thales’s technology. We all do.
BACS transfers; chip and pin transactions; journeys by car, tram, train and plane; autonomous and unmanned craft in action above, below, and on the oceans; world-class cyber security, defence technology – Thales touches all this and a great deal more.
In the not-too-distant future you’ll see how our systems and services have helped to turn the dream of autonomous road vehicles and pilotless passenger aircraft into an achievable reality. We’re already making headlines.
But what about the hidden story – the broader value that Thales brings to the economy and our deep support of the government’s UK industrial strategy? Can we measure the impact we have beyond our own operations?
We recently commissioned research firm Oxford Economics to look beyond the headlines and report on our total contribution to the UK economy. Here are the highlights:
As well as directly employing 6,500 people across 14 sites in the UK, we have also built a supply chain which supports another 11,200 jobs, many of which are in small- to medium-sized companies. Plus, the spending power of Thales’s employees keeps another 9,400 people gainfully employed. Taken together, Thales directly or indirectly supports 27,200 jobs in the UK.
The report also compared the productivity of Thales employees to the national average, calculating that the average output per worker in 2017 stood at £77,400, well above the UK average of £55,500.
“One of the most revealing numbers in the report is that our labour productivity is around 40% higher than the national average,” commented Victor Chavez, Thales UK’s Chief Executive. “That’s the Thales culture. We can all be proud of that.”
Research and development and training: our investment in the future
Oxford Economics then turned its attention to Thales’s research and development. Headline figures usually focus on the annual spend which, for Thales in 2017, was £130 million. But that’s only part of the story. Some of our investments won’t produce a return for many years and, even then, the full returns are hard to quantify – the development of enabling technologies which make the innovations of others possible, for instance.
Then there’s our relationships with academia, including contributions to Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council projects, our sponsorship of 45 PhD students to date, and our close relationships with universities across the UK. We employ hundreds of apprentices working from BTEC to master’s level, 160 graduates in a recognised training scheme and we work with schools as ambassadors for the science, technology, engineering and maths subjects.
“We need to encourage and nurture an interest in the sciences,” said Victor. “The UK has a fantastic technology base and, by investing now, we can make our country even stronger in the future.”
The bottom line
Overall, Thales contributed an estimated £1.7 billion to UK GDP in 2017, as well as generating over £450 million of tax revenue. Of this, Thales directly supported more than £500 million of economic activity, with the remainder coming from supply chain and worker spending effects.
Thales’s UK export sales rose at an average annual rate of 22 percent between 2015 and 2017. The company’s exports totalled £390 million in 2017.
The bigger picture
Our customers always come first. They are the reason we innovate, they are the reason we exist. But sometimes it is good to pause for a while and look beyond the headlines to consider the bigger picture, to examine our alignment with - and support for - the UK industrial strategy.
Above all, it is important to remember that what we do today contributes to the wellbeing of so many people today and in years to come. That’s what makes the difference. That’s what makes it worthwhile.
