Buckinghamshire’s exports, 2015

By Buckinghamshire Business First
29 September, 2017

Buckinghamshire’s exports were worth £3.8bn in 2015, split evenly between goods and services.

At £16,296, Buckinghamshire ranked 8th among the 38 Local Enterprise Partnerships for value of export per job. Although Buckinghamshire’s goods exports were worth more than service exports and accordingly had a higher value per local job, Buckinghamshire ranked 5th among LEPs for service export value per job but only 23rd for goods export value per job.

While Wycombe has the highest total export value among the Buckinghamshire districts, Chiltern has the highest value per local job at £26,051, ranking 27th of all 380 local authority districts in Great Britain, led by its strong goods exports. Wycombe has the highest value of service exports in Buckinghamshire at £722m, with South Bucks having the highest service export value per local job, ranking 55th in Great Britain.

Table 1: Total value of exports, 2015

Source: BBF analysis of Regional Trade Statistics, HMRC, 2017 &
Estimates of Exports by Region, ONS, 2017

Although almost half (41.7 per cent) of Buckinghamshire’s exports go to the EU, this is only the 26th highest share among the 38 LEPs, with 20.3 per cent going to the US and 3.3 per cent to China, leaving almost 29.4 per cent going to the rest of the world. The share of exports going to the EU ranges from 56.9 per cent in Wycombe to 39.3 per cent in both Chiltern and South Bucks, with Aylesbury Vale’s exports to the EU at 46.4 per cent.

Table 2: Exports to selected territories, 2015

Source: BBF analysis of Regional Trade Statistics, HMRC, 2017 &
Estimates of Exports by Region, ONS, 2017

Chiltern sends 32.4 per cent of its exports to the US, the 6th highest share among the 380 local authority districts in Great Britain, with only Wycombe among the Buckinghamshire districts failing to better the national and regional levels. Buckinghamshire businesses sent exports valued at £124m to China in 2015, representing 3.4 per cent of all exports, below the national level to rank 35th among LEPs. None of Buckinghamshire’s districts rank in the top 100 local authorities or better the national or regional rates for share of export value to China.

The EU, US and China accounted for 70.6 per cent of Buckinghamshire’s exports in 2015, with goods and services worth £1.1bn being exported to the rest of the world. Buckinghamshire had the 12th highest share of its goods and services exports going to the rest of the world among LEPs, led by South Bucks where 38.1 per cent were exported to those markets, the 45th highest share among local authorities.

Medicinal and pharmaceutical goods account for 28.7 per cent of the value of Buckinghamshire’s goods exports, rising to 75.8 per cent in Chiltern, ahead of other transport equipment (9.2), electrical machinery (9.1 per cent), telecommunications and sound recording and reproducing apparatus (6.3), office machines (5.1), and general industrial machinery and equipment (4.9). The leading goods exports by value for the other Buckinghamshire districts are other transport equipment (47.9 per cent of the value of goods exports) from South Bucks, electrical machinery (23.0) from Aylesbury Vale, and telecommunication and sound recording equipment (22.1) from Wycombe.