Sunderland

Sunderland built more ships than anywhere on earth—then stopped. By the early 20th century, the city's yards launched vessels that sailed every ocean: Doxford's, Austin & Pickersgill, and dozens of smaller operations employed tens of thousands. At peak production, Sunderland claimed the title of 'largest shipbuilding town in the world.'

The collapse came fast. Shipbuilding ended in 1988; coal mining followed in 1993. By the mid-1980s, unemployment reached 20% of the local workforce. The skills that built ocean liners had no obvious successor.

Then Nissan arrived. In 1984, the Japanese carmaker chose a 799-acre greenfield site in Sunderland—offered at agricultural prices of £1,800 per acre—because the collapsed shipbuilding industry had left a manufacturing-skilled workforce desperate for work. The plant opened in 1986 and has since produced over 10 million vehicles, making it Nissan's largest European facility and one of the UK's most productive car plants.

But automotive faces its own disruption. Nissan's global restructuring in 2025 announced £2.05 billion in cost cuts and 9,000 job losses worldwide. Sunderland's plant, upgraded for electric vehicle production, may survive—but the certainty is gone. Crown Works Studios, a planned £450 million film and TV complex, aims to create 8,500 jobs as a hedge against automotive decline.

By 2026, Sunderland will test whether one Japanese company can replace an entire shipbuilding industry—or whether the city needs yet another transformation.