From TheStudio.
Expert perspectives on web design, branding, digital strategy, and growth. Written by the people building the next generation of digital brands.
The £110k skills gap your website can quietly close
There's a number doing the rounds in engineering this month, and it's a bit grim. The skills body Enginuity reckons skills shortages and gaps now cost the engineering and manufacturing sector around £5.2bn a year, roughly 10% of its annual output. Per firm, the ones actually feeling it lose as much as 10% of their annual value added, about £110,000 each (Enginuity, "Mind the Gap", 2026). Roughly half the SMEs they surveyed reported a skills issue in the past year.
20 July 2026
Will Cloughley
Your Engineering Buyer Wants Specs, Not a Contact Form
A procurement engineer lands on your site at half nine on a Tuesday. They've got a part to source, a tolerance they need to hit, and four other firms open in other tabs. They want to know one thing: can you actually make this, to spec, in time. They scan your capabilities page, look for a materials list, a tolerance range, a lead time, maybe a datasheet to forward to their buyer. Instead they find a paragraph about your "commitment to quality" and a contact form. So they close the tab and go and read tab two.
18 June 2026
Will Cloughley
You're Using AI. You're Not Getting Value From It.
You bought the tools. You're still waiting for the results.
15 April 2026
Will Cloughley
Core Web Vitals Explained: The 4 Numbers That Affect Your Google Rankings
You know the feeling. You're standing in a queue at the supermarket, you pull up a website on your phone, and nothing happens. The screen just sits there. Within a few seconds, you've hit the back button and moved on.
18 March 2026
Will Cloughley
Why Most UK Business Websites Are Quietly Losing You Leads
You've got a website. It looks reasonable. Maybe you even spent a few thousand pounds on it a couple of years ago. But enquiries are sporadic, and you can't quite put your finger on why.
9 March 2026
Will Cloughley
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