Whether you’re looking for a local steel mill or a leading firm of bioengineers, the new UK Supply Chain Directory makes it easy to find the manufacturing supplier that’s right for your business.

The Directory, launched by the High Value Manufacturing Catapult (HVM Catapult) and The Data City, provides a wealth of user-friendly data on hundreds of thousands of companies across the country – for free.

We’ve spoken before about the unique way we’ve gathered extensive, accurate data to populate the Directory [provide link to previous blog], but here we’ll take a more in-depth look into how you can use it to find what you need.

Power at your fingertips

After registering or signing in to the Directory, you’ll be presented with the landing page.

Here, you’ll be able to see a list of all your company profiles that you’ve claimed, any recent searches you’ve carried out and be able to search for a specific company either by name, SIC code or its website address.

This is also where you can begin a search for the exact type of supplier you’re looking for, using our bespoke taxonomy – specific manufacturing and industrial search terms – that help provide far greater and more accurate insight into companies and the services they provide.

This function allows you to customise your search to be as broad or narrow as you wish. 

Using the different tabs on the filters bar at the top of the screen, you can select your own personalised criteria based on our Real-Time Industrial Classifications (RTICs), capabilities, locations, financials, keywords and more besides. 

Many of these fields can also be expanded to offer an even more specialised search:

When you’ve refined your search terms as much as you wish and initiate the search, you’ll be presented with a list of relevant suppliers. This list view offers a summary of each company, including contact details, address, website, turnover and company size:

This information can then be expanded for any listed company, by selecting the ‘Full info’ button in the bottom right of each supplier pane.

The resulting page contains a number of tabs containing more detailed information on the company, including a list of capabilities, financials, directors and key employees, locations and more.

For some businesses, the location of their supplier or supply chain is just as important, in which case the ‘Visualise’ function of the Directory can add significant value.

After selecting the Visualise tab in the top right of any screen in the Directory, you can use the same function to receive a map of the UK showing where each company is based, as well as other useful information:

The Directory provides user-friendly access to an extensive array of UK manufacturers, completely free of charge – and is an excellent resource for any organisation looking to develop, strengthen and build resilience into their supply chain.

Register for the UK Supply Chain Directory, and claim your company’s profile.