Jaguar Land Rover to resume some manufacturing in ‘coming days’ after cyber attack

Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) has announced it will partially resume manufacturing “in the coming days” after nearly a month in the wake of a cyber attack.

The luxury car-making plants have paused production since 31 August. The cyber attack halted car-making across the supply chain, with staff off work as a result.

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More than 33,000 people work directly for JLR in the UK, many of whom are on assembly lines in the West Midlands, with the largest facility located in Solihull, and a plant in Halewood on Merseyside.

Roughly 200,000 more are employed by several hundred companies in the supply chain, who rely on JLR orders as their biggest client.

“As the controlled, phased restart of our operations continues, we are taking further steps towards our recovery and the return to manufacture of our world-class vehicles,” a company spokesperson said.

The shutdown was said to last until at least 1 October.

“Today we are informing colleagues, retailers and suppliers that some sections of our manufacturing operations will resume in the coming days,” the company added, days on from the partial restart of its IT systems, which allowed supplier payments to recommence.

“We know there is much more to do, but the foundational work of our recovery is firmly underway, and we will continue to provide updates as we progress.”

Over the weekend, the government said it would underwrite a £1.5bn five-year loan guarantee to JLR.

The promise came as the head of the influential Business and Trade Committee of MPs wrote to Chancellor Rachel Reeves, warning small firms reliant on JLR, “may have at best a week of cashflow left to support themselves” with “urgent” action needed to support businesses.

JLR was just the latest business to be the subject of a cyberattack.

Harrods, the Co-Op, and Marks and Spencer, are among the companies that’ve struggled in the past year with such attacks.