The United Kingdom remains highly exposed to disruption across major global shipping routes, and recent events are reinforcing how quickly those risks can translate into operational and commercial pressure for businesses.
According to the Department for Transport, around 85% of the UK’s international freight by weight and roughly 55% by value moved by sea in 2024. That means any prolonged disruption affecting major maritime corridors can still trigger serious knock-on effects, especially for companies dependent on imported raw materials, components and finished goods.
Recent disruptions have already shown how quickly the situation can escalate. Analysis from the Office for National Statistics found that UK-bound container ships were rerouted around the Cape of Good Hope in 2024 due to insecurity in the Red Sea, adding several weeks to transit times. UN Trade and Development has also warned that disruption across the Red Sea, Suez Canal and Panama Canal has raised costs and added pressure to already fragile global supply chains.
Richard Gray, chief commercial officer at Cleveland Containers, said supply chain disruption can no longer be treated as an exceptional or one-off event. In his view, volatility across trade routes is becoming a regular operating reality, which forces businesses to rethink how they approach stockholding, storage space and contingency planning.
Cleveland Containers, which specialises in shipping containers, says some sectors are particularly vulnerable. Construction is one of the clearest examples. Government data from 2025 shows that 60.2% of UK construction material imports came from the European Union, highlighting how delays or restrictions on key trade routes can quickly affect project costs, schedules and material availability.
Manufacturing remains highly exposed too, given its reliance on imported machinery, transport equipment and manufactured materials. The latest ONS trade bulletin shows how changes in those categories continue to shape monthly UK import and export performance across both EU and non-EU markets. Retail and food supply chains are also sensitive, particularly where stock cycles are tight and replenishment windows are short.
Gray said many businesses still think about disruption only in terms of whether goods arrive on time, but the deeper issue lies in what depends on that shipment behind the scenes. Once one late consignment affects production, fulfilment or a planned construction programme, the commercial consequences can spread very quickly.
Supply chain resilience has become an increasing policy priority in recent years, including through the UK’s Critical Imports and Supply Chains Strategy. That strategy calls on government and business to work together to reduce vulnerability and strengthen resilience. It reflects wider recognition that efficiency alone is no longer enough when trade routes can be disrupted by war, climate events or infrastructure bottlenecks.
For UK companies, the challenge is not just where disruption happens, but how little time they often have to respond once it begins. When vessels are rerouted, transit times lengthen, planning becomes more difficult and flexibility decreases, exposing firms to further downstream delays.
This is especially relevant for businesses still operating with lean inventory models. Just-in-time systems may have reduced storage costs for years, but resilience planning is increasingly pushing companies to reconsider how much stock they hold and where they hold it.
International organisations including the OECD and the World Economic Forum have both highlighted the growing need to balance efficiency with preparedness as disruption becomes more frequent.
Businesses are responding in different ways. Many are diversifying sourcing strategies, nearshoring production where feasible and adopting digital tools to improve visibility across supply networks.
Storage is also becoming more strategically important. Rather than relying exclusively on centralised warehousing, some firms are exploring more flexible on-site options that allow them to hold additional stock without committing to major long-term infrastructure investment.
Gray pointed to scalable storage such as 20-foot containers as one practical option that can allow businesses to expand capacity quickly in response to disruption and reduce dependence on precisely timed deliveries.
What he sees, he said, is a move toward practical resilience. Businesses are increasingly asking how they can create more breathing room in operations through additional stockholding, flexible storage or supply chains that are less exposed to a single point of failure.
While it remains difficult to predict exactly where the next major trade shock will originate, the pattern of recent events suggests that volatility will remain a constant feature of global logistics.
For British businesses, preparation now comes down to understanding where exposure lies and building safeguards in place before disruption hits. That means analysing dependencies, stress-testing operations and investing in systems and infrastructure capable of absorbing delays.
Gray’s conclusion was simple: the companies best equipped to handle future shocks will be the ones preparing for them now. The goal is not to eliminate risk entirely, but to make sure that when something does go wrong, operations do not grind to a halt.
