JLR shutdown after cyber hack drives slump in UK car production

The five-week shutdown of Jaguar Land Rover’s (JLR) factories following a cyber-attack drove car production down by more than a quarter in September.

JLR facilities did not produce a single vehicle last month, after the cyber-attack forced the car maker to shut down its IT systems and halt its global manufacturing operations, including at its three UK plants.

Overall UK car production fell by 27% with just over 51,000 made last month, data from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) showed.

It is the lowest number of cars made in any September in the UK since 1952, including the pandemic, the SMMT said.

The JLR cyber-attack was largely responsible for the slump in UK car production, the SMMT said, because other manufacturers reported stable figures for the month.

The attack is also estimated to cost £1.9bn and be the most economically damaging cyber event in UK history, according to research published on Tuesday.

The Cyber Monitoring Centre (CMC) found 5,000 businesses have been affected by the event and a full recovery will not occur until January 2026.

JLR said production across sites in Solihull, Wolverhampton and Halewood was returning in a phased approach.

The maker of the Jaguar I-Pace and Range Rover Sport is the second-largest car producer by volume in the UK after Nissan.

Overall, total vehicle production slumped by 35.9% in September compared to a year ago to about 54,300 vehicles.

The SMMT chief executive Mike Hawes said: “September’s performance comes as no surprise given the total loss of production at Britain’s biggest automotive employer following a cyber incident.

“While the situation has improved, the sector remains under immense pressure,” he added.

The majority of vehicles made in the UK are shipped overseas, and exports in September also slumped – down 24.5% – with the EU, US, Turkey, Japan and South Korea the top five destinations.

This year so far UK car and van factories have made 582,250 vehicles, which is 15.2% lower than at the same point in 2024.

The five-week JLR shutdown was a “severe, but short-term issue” for the overall industry, the boss of Autotrader Ian Plummer said.

“It’ll be a bit like Covid, where after the shutdown and delays end, there’s a surge in demand and sales,” he said.

Mr Plummer, who runs the UK’s biggest car-selling platform said, JLR brands had risen to have the highest number of monthly sales leads on Autotrader, “so there is demand out there, even as the pipeline is currently stuck”.

The SMMT’s Mr Hawes also said a recent ambition from the UK government to help foster a resurgence in domestic car production to 1.3m vehicles a year is in doubt if the chancellor Rachel Reeves ends tax breaks offered to Employee Car Ownership Schemes (ECOS).

“The industry is calling for rapid interventions to shore up its competitiveness,” he said.

Keeping manufacturers’ ECOS schemes would be “an immediate relief”, he said, and bringing forward other interventions including programmes to bolster supply chain resilience “would further boost the sector”.