The UK manufacturing sector is increasingly hiring interim managers to cope with increased demand, according to Tom Legard, head of the manufacturing practice at Interim Partners.

Legard’s comments follow Ipsos MORI research, which shows daily rates for interim managers in manufacturing reached £845 per day in the last quarter of 2010, up 13% compared with the same time last year.

Legard says: “With manufacturing expanding at its highest rate in 19 years, manufacturers are now more than ready to appoint interims to tackle particular short-term challenges because they are confident of getting an excellent return on their investment.

“In some cases, using an interim is crucial to expansion projects – for example, we have seen strong demand for interims to put European-standard quality and safety control systems in place where a UK manufacturer is expanding capacity by outsourcing the production of component parts to factories in China and South-East Asia. Often that expertise is not available locally.”