Nissan Sunderland

Nissan's car plant in Sunderland, the UK's largest car factory, building the Qashqai, Juke and Leaf for customers in many countries.

About Nissan Sunderland

Nissan Sunderland is the Japanese carmaker Nissan's main British factory, on the site of a former airfield in Sunderland, Tyne and Wear. It currently builds three models: the Qashqai family crossover, the Juke small crossover and the electric Leaf. Cars made here are sold well beyond Britain, and a large share of the plant's output goes overseas.

The plant opened in 1986, when the then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Nissan's president Yutaka Kume officially opened it. By 2016 it had built almost nine million cars, and Nissan described it as the UK's largest car plant of all time, making roughly one in three British-built cars. We did not find a mission statement written specially for the Sunderland site, so we do not quote one. A 2016 company release credited the people there for keeping the plant "globally competitive", and that idea of skilled teamwork on the line is the clearest theme in what Nissan says about the site.

Sunderland is in the North East of England, and the factory sits at the heart of a wider regional supply chain. A 2016 Nissan release said the plant supported a further 28,000 jobs across the UK automotive supply chain, though that figure is now several years old. More recent reporting puts the Sunderland workforce at about 6,000 people. The site also has an on-site battery facility, part of a UK investment of £420 million, as the plant moves towards electric vehicles.

Making a car involves far more than assembly. A plant like this employs people in press and body shops, paint, final assembly, quality checks, logistics, engineering, purchasing and finance. The site has its own training department and a learning centre offering more than 300 courses, which suggests learning on the job is a normal part of working there. In 2025 the plant made about 273,000 cars, and in May 2026 production was moved onto one of its two lines without cutting jobs, so it is a busy but changing workplace. The Leaf has been built here from 2012 to 2024 and again from 2025, and by 2016 more than two million Qashqais had been built in under ten years, with cars sold in over 130 markets.

If you are curious about cars, this is a good place to see how many different careers sit behind a single vehicle, from electrical and software engineering to supply-chain planning. Nissan Sunderland's own website and its UK press pages are the best place to check what the company currently says about the plant and its people.

What they do

• {'desc': 'Builds the Qashqai, Juke and Leaf for the UK and export markets.', 'title': 'Car manufacturing'}
• {'desc': 'On-site lithium-ion battery facility supporting electric models.', 'title': 'Battery production'}
• {'desc': 'Internal training department and a learning centre with 300+ courses.', 'title': 'Training and learning'}

Key facts

• Plant opened in 1986 in Sunderland, Tyne and Wear
• Models built: Qashqai (since 2006), Juke (since 2010) and Leaf
• About 6,000 employees (recent reporting); 273,000 cars made in 2025
• Almost 9 million cars built by 2016; around 80% exported at that time

Website: www.nissan.co.uk