The High Value Manufacturing Catapult is a UK network of seven research centres that help companies turn new manufacturing ideas into real products at scale.
The High Value Manufacturing (HVM) Catapult is a UK organisation that helps businesses of all sizes take new ideas through to commercial production. It does this by giving companies access to specialist equipment and expertise they could not easily afford or find on their own, so they can test a new process or material before committing to big investments. Its focus areas include digital manufacturing, robotics and automation, new materials and materials processing, process engineering, and product design and verification.
The HVM Catapult works through seven centres: the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC) in Sheffield, Nuclear AMRC, the Manufacturing Technology Centre (MTC) in Coventry, the National Composites Centre (NCC) in Bristol, WMG at the University of Warwick, the National Manufacturing Institute Scotland (NMIS), which includes the Advanced Forming Research Centre, and the Centre for Process Innovation (CPI) in the North East. The first meeting of the HVM Catapult took place at the AFRC in 2011. The Catapult describes itself as the UK's strategic research and innovation hub for industry and says its role is to bridge the gap between research, business and government.
Its stated aim is to keep UK industry competitive by helping firms improve their products, modernise production and upskill their workers, and to stop promising UK innovations from being lost to overseas competitors. The Catapult's head office moved to Innovation Birmingham in September 2022, and its CEO is Katherine Bennett CBE, who has led it since 2021. The chair is Steve Bagshaw CBE, who took over from Allan Cook CBE in 2023.
Its annual review for 2022 to 2023 gives a picture of the work. Projects included a research facility in Sheffield built with Boeing, electric aircraft propeller blades for Vertical Aerospace, a WMG electric motorcycle project with Triumph, heat treatment simulations at Nuclear AMRC to cut energy use, and work by CPI on a plant-based alternative to plastics. There is also an Emerging Skills Programme for electric vehicle and other green skills, and a Workforce Foresighting Hub run by the MTC for Innovate UK. The review reports about 3,735 full-time equivalent staff across the network, although one section gives a different figure.
The Catapult describes its culture as collaborative and open, and says staff ideas for improvement have been adopted across the network. People who work in a network like this include engineers, scientists, technicians, digital and data specialists, project managers, business development officers, and communications and skills teams. If you enjoy making things, solving practical problems or seeing a lab idea turn into a working product, this is a good place to look at in the UK manufacturing story. The centres are spread across England and Scotland, so jobs are not just in London.
Website: hvm.catapult.org.uk
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