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Rolls-Royce engineers and Deindustrialization in Scotland from the 1950s to the 2020s

Lookup NU author(s): Dr Ewan MackenzieORCiD, Professor Alan McKinlay, Professor Stephen ProcterORCiD

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Abstract

Research involving Rolls-Royce engineers made redundant in 2020, when the firm ended its Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul operation at Inchinnan in Renfrewshire, Scotland, provides recent-world perspective on the history of deindustrialization in the UK. Specifically, it qualifies the half-life metaphor which has been advanced in social sciences and humanities literature to explain the prolonged chronological impact of job losses and workplace closures. The metaphor imprecisely presents deindustrialization as a moment of rupture followed by predictable contraction and downplays the continued importance of industrial work after the 1980s. Evidence provided by the redundant Rolls-Royce workers through life-course interviews and a survey questionnaire shows that deindustrialization is both a historical and continuing current-world process. Two phenomena are emphasized: the adaptation since the 1950s in Scotland of a robust industrial culture, equipped with moral economy understanding of employment changes; and, into the 2010s, the ‘post-industrial’ presence of significant levels of industrial and what we term ‘industrial-analogous’ employment in the UK.

Publication metadata

Author(s): Gibbs E, Mackenzie E, McKinlay A, McNulty D, Phillips J, Procter S

Publication type: Article

Publication status: Published

Journal: Modern British History

Year: 2025

Volume: 36

Issue: 2

Online publication date: 04/02/2025

Acceptance date: 11/02/2025

Date deposited: 16/04/2025

ISSN (print): 2976-7016

ISSN (electronic): 2976-7024

Publisher: Oxford University Press

URL: https://doi.org/10.1093/tcbh/hwaf002

DOI: 10.1093/tcbh/hwaf002

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