UK manufacturing is set for “steady” growth into 2011, according to Dean Ball, regional managing director, whose remit includes manufacturing at Michael Page International.

Ball’s comments follow release of the CIPS/Markit purchasing managers index which rose to 58.0, the highest point since September of 1994.

“The growth is across the board, even on the building side. People are slowly starting to build so the build manufacturers, the people running the quarries extracting minerals, they are all seeing demand that has not been there. It is not massive but when there was nothing, anything is an improvement.

“Our numbers are mirroring those results. We are outperforming what we were expecting. At the beginning of 2009, the market was awful so the increase is coming off a really low base. The market has accelerated strongly. Momentum returned to the market in Q3 2009. It slowed in Q4 and was relatively slow in Q1 of this year. A lot of manufacturers were destocking because there were no orders coming in. They have now had to build to order and that’s what causing the increase.

“I don’t see a massive incremental increase but I do see it staying steady at the current state. We only deal with senior management positions but clients are recruiting across the board. They shed a lot of blue collar staff but they are having to hire at that level as well.”