Dr Colin Rigby, Reader and Director of Enterprise at Keele University, is an academic with long standing links to the Staffordshire ceramics sector, where he worked in manufacturing of sanitary ware and conducted a number of high-profile research projects in manufacturing innovation with the industry Research Technology Organisation.
When the national media looks at Stoke-on-Trent and the wider North Staffordshire area, the narrative is almost always draped in nostalgia. Cameras pan across historic bottle ovens, the voiceover laments the decline of heavy industry, and the discussion inevitably frames ceramics as a heritage sector—venerable, culturally vital, but ultimately a legacy of the past looking for a lifeline. It is a comfortable, well-worn story. It is also entirely wrong.
The recent landmark announcement of a £120 million government support package for the UK ceramics industry marks a decisive turning point. This funding, following sustained pressure from local manufacturers and North Staffordshire MPs like Gareth Snell, Allison Gardner, David Williams, and Adam Jogee, proves that the sector is no longer being treated as a preserved museum piece, but as a critical, high-tech foundational asset.
If the government is serious about building a resilient, modern industrial strategy, this momentum must be maintained. We must completely stop viewing ceramics through the lens of museum curation and continue viewing it through the lens of advanced technology. The truth is that North Staffordshire is sitting on a modern-day material science cluster that functions much more like a tech hub than an industrial relic.
More Than Mugs: The Fabric of Modern Tech
While the world-class tableware and sanitaryware produced here remain global benchmarks of quality, the technical ceramics footprint in the region has quietly evolved into something indispensable.
Consider the realities of modern technology. You cannot build a green economy, a sovereign defence sector, or an advanced healthcare system without advanced ceramics. Fuel cells, hydrogen production matrices, next-generation battery components, high-performance thermal barriers, aerospace communication, lightweight armour, bio-inert joint replacements, and high-precision medical imaging equipment… When we talk about the ceramics cluster, we are talking about the foundational materials that make the rest of the UK’s high-tech ambitions possible.
If this domestic capacity were to be hollowed out by short-term energy crises and policy blind spots, the UK wouldn’t just lose jobs in Staffordshire; it would lose sovereign capability across its entire advanced manufacturing supply chain.
The Innovation Reframing
When writing this piece, I was headline-grabbing by making an appeal to “Silicon Valley”—but it is ultimately a lazy and flawed trope that does more harm than good. Silicon Valley’s success was built on a hyper-capitalist, software-first ecosystem characterized by venture capital blitz scaling, rapid “move fast and break things” iteration, and intangible digital products. Trying to paste that template onto advanced ceramics completely misunderstands the nature of heavy material science.
Between the deep institutional knowledge held within our local businesses, the specialized research output of our universities, and the presence of world-leading centres like Lucideon and AMRICC (Advanced Materials Research, Innovation and Commercialisation Centre), the region is a living laboratory.
Yet, historically, when national funding streams for “deep tech” or “frontier science” were announced, the money rarely flowed toward the kilns of Stoke. Why? Because of a failure of imagination and branding. “Advanced materials” sounds like a futuristic government whitepaper; “ceramics” sounds like your grandmother’s tea set. We have allowed the language of the past to obscure the value of the future.
A ceramics cluster relies on massive physical infrastructure, multi-decade capital investments, intense energy inputs, and highly specialised, generationally passed-down manufacturing skills. By forcing a deeply rooted, physical asset-heavy British industrial base into a trendy Californian tech mould, writers don’t elevate the sector; they trivialise its unique operational realities and distract from the specific, unglamorous policy solutions that it needs to survive.
A Strategy, Not a Subsidy
The sector has never asked for a mere handout; it requires a level playing field and an intelligent, appropriate industrial strategy. Advanced manufacturing requires significant energy, and the current transition period—moving from fossil gas to net-zero alternatives like hydrogen or full electrification—is a precarious bridge to cross.
The government’s new £120 million package addresses this exact vulnerability by splitting the support perfectly to address the unique needs of the sector across £60 million for new equipment, focusing heavily on decarbonisation, energy efficiency, and sustainability and £60
million to cover operational costs, helping to mitigate the rising costs that have threatened jobs and investments.
Ensuring the sector has competitive energy costs and the means to upgrade its infrastructure during this bridge phase isn’t corporate welfare. As Ceramics UK Chief Executive Rob Flello noted, this targeted support bypasses generic schemes to offer a pathway geared directly to the sector’s unique needs, safeguarding jobs and putting it on a sustainable footing.
If the government wants to continue picking winners in the global race for clean tech and advanced manufacturing, it doesn’t need to reinvent the wheel. It just needs to keep backing the kilns of North Staffordshire. It’s time to permanently retire the nostalgia and recognise the region for what it truly is: a vital, forward-facing powerhouse of British tech.
