Despite Britain's reputation as the 'workshop of the world', manufacturing employed only slightly more people than services in 1841, and by 1881 it employed significantly less. Our 19th century data tend to overstate the size of manufacturing, because many goods counted as 'manufacturing' were made not in factories but in small workshops behind shops run by the people making the goods.

In 1841 this meant most districts had 20-30% of the workforce in manufacturing. A small group of districts had over 50% of their workforces in manufacturing, mostly in a single dominant industry, like textiles, pottery or shoe-making. Excepting London, manufacturing was concentrated mainly in the north and midlands. Single industry communities were clearly unable to provide their populations with a full range of services. As they matured, both the overall proportion in manufacturing and the numbers in their dominant industries declined. The concentration of manufacturing into the north continued up to 1931, but new industrial centres based on consumer goods were growing in the south.

In modern Britain, the most prosperous areas contain few factories. Instead, they have become centres of management, marketing and research for goods which are physically manufactured somewhere else, including outside Britain altogether.