The UK Government has released its long-awaited Vision 2035: Critical Minerals Strategy, outlining a national commitment to fortify resilient supply chains, speed up industrial decarbonization, and enhance domestic capabilities in materials vital to economic and national security. The new strategy recognizes the urgent global competition for such resources, fueled by trends like electrification, low-carbon infrastructure development, defense systems, aerospace, and digital technology advancement.

Notably, this is the first time aluminium has been officially designated as both a critical and strategic growth material for the UK economy. This acknowledgment aligns with the sector’s long-standing understanding: aluminium serves as the backbone of modern manufacturing, a key enabler of net-zero technologies, and a globally contested resource. The announcement solidifies aluminium’s status beyond a mere industrial metal—it is now a material of national significance.

Implications for the UK Aluminium Sector

The strategy pledges to boost the share of critical materials sourced domestically, through both new supply channels and recycling initiatives. It sets long-term goals for the UK to meet more of its industrial needs via domestic processing, circular material flows, and technological innovation. Importantly, it prioritizes investment and policy support for mid-stream processing, recycling, and advanced manufacturing—areas where the UK aluminium sector already boasts strengths.

This direction strikes a chord with the aluminium industry. Unlike many critical minerals where the UK lacks natural reserves, aluminium’s value lies not in extraction but in the country’s ability to recycle, refine, upgrade, and reuse it to high standards—building sovereign capabilities and industrial resilience. The policy’s clear focus on circularity and domestic production underscores the growing strategic importance of the UK’s aluminium remelting, scrap utilization, and downstream manufacturing sectors.

The Role of the UK Aluminium Alliance

The government’s strategy closely aligns with the work of the UK Aluminium Alliance, which unites industry leaders to compile evidence, data, and policy influence around domestic capabilities. This includes mapping skills, scrap flows, processing capacity, trade vulnerabilities, infrastructure gaps, and opportunities for strategic investment. The Alliance’s core mission mirrors the national strategy’s goals: unlocking the full value of UK aluminium and preventing high-quality scrap and secondary materials from being wasted through export or underutilization.

The Alliance is highlighting why aluminium should be viewed not just as tradable waste, but as a strategic national asset. Enabling UK manufacturers to secure a supply of low-carbon aluminium is not only an environmental objective—it is also crucial for maintaining competitiveness.

Looking Ahead

Aluminium’s inclusion in the UK Critical Minerals Strategy marks a pivotal moment. As the government focuses on secure supply chains, carbon performance, and resilient domestic capabilities, the aluminium sector has a unique opportunity to shape industrial strategy direction. The UK already excels in remelting, recycling, and advanced processing; with proper support, these strengths can anchor secure supply chains and deliver competitive advantages across multiple strategic industries.

However, this recognition is just a first step, not an end goal. The real test will be how this status translates into practical policies, investments, and regulatory decisions in the coming years. Through the UK Aluminium Alliance, ALFED will continue to provide evidence, engage with the government, and collaborate with members to ensure aluminium’s newly designated strategic status is matched by meaningful support for domestic production, recycling, and downstream manufacturing.