Brett Barratt MD Warrior Doors manufacturer of stainless steel security sliding doors
WHY SOVEREIGN MANUFACTURING IS BECOMING CRITICAL TO UK INFRASTRUCTURE SECURITY
The resilience of the UK’ s critical national infrastructure is under increasing scrutiny, as recent events and government policy signal a shift in how risk is understood— and managed.
In November 2025, the government announced plans for a new Energy Resilience Strategy following the North Hyde substation fire, which caused major disruption and exposed vulnerabilities in essential infrastructure. The strategy is expected to strengthen requirements around asset maintenance, inspection and design standards, alongside improving coordination across operators and emergency services.
At the same time, the threat landscape continues to expand. Cyber attacks are now considered one of the UK’ s top national security risks, with hundreds of serious incidents affecting essential services each year. New legislation is being introduced to strengthen resilience across sectors including energy, transport, healthcare and digital infrastructure.
Together, these developments reflect a growing recognition that infrastructure resilience depends not only on high-level systems and policy— but on the reliability of the components that underpin them.
For manufacturers operating in security-critical environments, this shift is significant.
Brett Barratt, Managing Director of Warrior Doors, a Birmingham-based manufacturer of high-security sliding doors, argues that increasing regulatory focus is exposing a long-standing gap between specification and real-world performance.
“ There’ s a growing assumption that if a product meets a standard on paper, it will perform the same way in service,” he says.“ But in critical infrastructure, that’ s not always the case. Variability in manufacturing, materials or installation can introduce risk— and that’ s where failures happen.”
50 AUTOMATION, CONTROL & ENGINEERING