There are approximately 37,300 employees in the food and drink manufacturing and processing sector, which is 2% of all Scottish jobs.  The food and drink manufacturing sector in Scotland has an annual turnover of £6.5 billion.  There are 960 food and drink manufacturing enterprises in Scotland.  There are around 1,600 workplaces of which 60% employ between 1 and 10 employees. Half of employment in the sector is concentrated in:

• Glasgow city (14%)
• Aberdeenshire (8%)
• Edinburgh city (7%)
• Dumfries and Galloway (7%)
• South Lanarkshire (7%)
• Fife (6%)

Employment in the sector is expected to grow to 46,300 in 2010, and then decrease to 43,700 by 2015. 

The majority of employees in the Scottish food and drink sector work full-time (87%) and are male.  64% of the Scottish workforce are male. The average age of employees in the sector is 39 years, which is similar to the average for Scotland (40 years).  39% of organisations have no employees aged 16-24 years.   87% of sector organisations employ an all white workforce.

Compared to the rest of the Scottish economy, the food and drink sector is characterised by a smaller proportion of vacancies that are hard-to-fill, 30% compared to 46% (as a proportion of all vacancies).  There is a similar proportion of hard-to-fill vacancies that are the result of skill shortages.  8% of workplaces in the sector report skills shortages compared to 5% of all workplaces in other sectors.

The occupational profile of the sector is very different to that of the Scottish economy.  52% of employees are process, plant and machine operatives which is a higher proportion compared to other sectors in Scotland (10%).  A low proportion of employees are working as professionals (5%, compared to 15% in other sectors) and associate professionals (2%, compared to 8% in other sectors).

The average weekly full-time wage is £352, which is 10% lower than Scottish average.

A similar proportion of sector workplaces report skills gaps compared to other sectors in the Scottish labour market with 22% of employers believing their employees are not fully proficient.  Skills gaps are reported for soft skills, such as team working, planning and organising.

The Scottish food and drink industry is less well qualified at higher levels than the average UK population:

• 23% of the workforce have no qualifications
• 10% are qualified to Level 5, compared to 19% in all sectors
• 16% are qualified to Level 3, compared to 22%

Workplaces in the sector are more likely to recruit directly from schools (41%) compared to other sectors (25%) and from further education colleges (25% compared to 18% in other sectors).  Turnover in the sector (27%) is slightly higher than turnover in other sectors (23%).

Expected future challenges for the sector include increasing competition from within Scotland and business regulations.

Source: Improve Skills Needs Analysis (volume 2) 2006, GEN Consulting DEVA 2006, Futureskills Scotland 2005 and Labour Force Survey 2004

  More LMI on Scotland is available on the Careers Scotland website. 

For more Scottish data on the sector go to the Improve website.   For more data on the characteristics of the workforce see: