The UK arm of NSG Group, based in St Helens, making float, coated and automotive glass; Pilkington invented the float glass process.
Pilkington UK makes glass for buildings and cars. Its products include float glass, which is the flat, clear glass used for windows, plus rolled and coated glass, glass processing, and automotive glass for both new vehicles and replacement windscreens. The company says it invented the float process, which most of the world's high-quality flat glass is now made with. Its glass appears in projects such as the Stonehenge visitor centre, and it makes coated glass for touch screens and digital displays and windscreens and glass roofs for carmakers such as Jaguar Land Rover.
The Pilkington name is tied to St Helens in Merseyside, and the company describes its brand as associated with technical excellence and service for 200 years. NSG Group, a Japanese glass company, acquired Pilkington in 2006 and is its parent. We could not find a founding date on the page we read, so we simply say it is a very old name. A trade-press headline from Glass International says Pilkington UK has marked 200 years of glassmaking, which fits that long history.
The company says its aim is to be judged Best In Glass. It emphasises innovation, collaboration and sustainable business relationships, and says its expertise helps turn customers' visions into reality. It describes customer support from the start of a project and a focus on people as well as glass. The company page also mentions the Rose Centre in New York among its notable projects, which shows UK-made expertise reaching overseas buildings. These are the company's own statements, not independent findings.
Its page says about 1,700 people work for Pilkington across the UK, with its main base in St Helens. NSG Group's European Technical Centre is nearby at Lathom in Lancashire, where scientists and engineers work on glass technology. The company page lists glass production, processing and merchanting as well as automotive manufacturing, so the UK team spans several kinds of site.
Glass making needs a surprising mix of skills. Roles include furnace and process engineers, materials scientists and coating chemists, researchers at the technical centre, production and quality technicians, maintenance engineers, supply chain and logistics planners, sales and technical advisers who work with architects and builders, and finance, HR and IT staff. If you are interested in chemistry, physics, design or architecture, this is a place where those interests turn into the windows and screens we use every day.
Website: www.pilkington.com/en-gb
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