[Ferro-Alloys.com]  Ministerial foreword

Critical minerals are integral to our modern way of life, from lithium in the smartphones we rely on to Rare Earth Elements (REEs) in the permanent magnets that drive the wind turbines and electric vehicles which will help power the green transition. These vital metals and minerals are used in communications, critical infrastructure, defence, renewable energy, transport and life sciences. Without them, our lives would grind to a halt. Industries would shut down overnight and communities would not be able to function.

In the UK alone, we anticipate that between now and 2035 yearly demand for copper will almost double, while demand for lithium will increase by 1,100%. As economies across the globe undertake the green transition, the demand for these minerals will only increase as their energy sources and transport systems become increasingly reliant on low-carbon technology.

In the global market, we have seen increasingly concentrated processing and mining supply chains in recent years. Such concentration means that the supply chain is particularly vulnerable to shocks such as natural disasters, war or geopolitical fallout. It is vital, therefore, that we have a plan to secure critical minerals for our industries and to diversify our supply chains.

This government recognises the huge opportunities on offer for both our critical minerals industry and the vital growth sectors it serves, which is why we are setting out our strategy to both take advantage of those opportunities and guard against the dangers of shortages or disruption.

Through this government’s Growth Mission, we are on the path to making the UK a world leader in technological innovation and a clean energy superpower. The Industrial Strategy launched in July 2025 underpins that Growth Mission, setting out a blueprint for 10 years of sustained economic growth through our most important growth sectors. This Critical Minerals Strategy – Vision 2035 – is key to making this a reality.

Our strategy sets out how we will grow our domestic production and use our international partnerships across the globe to support the resilience of the country’s Industrial Strategy growth sectors. In England, critical mineral strengths span areas such as the North East of England, including County Durham and Teesside, and the South West, including Devon and Cornwall. Scotland is embedding critical minerals’ resilience in its broader commitment to meeting net zero and creating a more circular economy. Wales has leveraged the geology and skills of the local workforce to retain nickel and titanium product manufacturing to this day. In Northern Ireland, research from the Queens University Belfast is contributing to new ways of recycling permanent magnets used in applications from wind turbines to vehicles.

By strengthening our own capabilities for mining, refining and recycling, we can create a more circular economy, support British industry, and reduce reliance on imports. This will be especially important in areas like the South West and the North East, which could see an industrial renaissance through the mining, processing and recycling of critical minerals.

Partnerships with resource-rich countries, alongside leveraging the UK’s capital markets, delivering our Trade Strategy and considering industry-led resilience measures in sensitive sectors like defence, will help secure the supply of critical minerals we need to meet future demand while supporting global diversification of critical minerals supply chains. We will promote supply chains that are responsible and transparent, upholding high Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) standards.

We will also strengthen the sector by utilising our world-leading credentials in academia, research and development (R&D), finance and trade – including the City of London and world leading institutions, like Camborne School of Mines. This will not only help expand our domestic production, but also enhance our ability to pursue our international growth partnerships, tap into global markets, and maintain reliable links with overseas supply chains during global shocks.

Vision 2035 directly links critical mineral demand to the UK’s growth sectors. We are not only identifying how short-term demand for critical minerals can be addressed, but also how the UK can create a thriving critical minerals industry which rejuvenates industrial communities and spurs growth in those sectors, including Advanced Manufacturing, Clean Energy Industries, Digital and Technologies, Defence and Life Sciences.

Through this strategy we are taking bold steps to make the UK one of the most advanced, resilient and future-facing economies in the world.

Chris McDonald MP

Minister of State for Industry at the Department for Business and Trade and Department for Energy Security and Net Zero

Executive summary

Critical minerals are essential to the UK’s economy, national security, and clean energy transition. UK economic resilience is a core objective of the UK’s Industrial Strategy. As foundational inputs to sectors driving the Industrial Strategy, critical minerals are vital to achieving the government’s mission of stimulating long-term economic growth. However, the global geopolitical landscape and complex supply chains pose persistent challenges to securing these vital resources. In this global, dynamic context, a new approach to critical minerals is required.

This new, targeted Critical Minerals Strategy sets the UK’s long-term ambition for securing critical minerals and harnessing our competitive advantage in recycling and innovative midstream processing – the transformation of mined or recycled materials into refined or upgraded forms suitable for manufacturing. This approach is based on proactively addressing market challenges and anticipating future demand for key minerals to ensure a reliable, sustainable and future-proof supply of critical minerals.

Achieving our ambitions requires a whole-of-society effort – from the choices we make about recycling our old smartphones, through to the technologies we adopt to warm our homes, like heat pumps. Critical minerals are embedded throughout the UK economy, in the new technology consumers buy, the IT our businesses rely on, and in our critical national infrastructure.

The UK’s global positioning on critical minerals shares similarities with partners but also reflects distinct national characteristics. As a net importer of critical minerals, the UK faces strategic vulnerabilities, shared by partners such as the EU. Like the EU, we depend on geographically concentrated global supply chains for key sectors such as advanced manufacturing and defence. Unlike major producing countries, our domestic mining sector is smaller in scale, but it remains an important contributor to global markets.

In the context of increasing state intervention in critical mineral markets, the UK must prioritise how best to deploy its resources to achieve its aims. So, the UK must set out a path which reflects our unique set of strengths in securing critical minerals for the UK.

To reduce our vulnerability, the UK will make strategic use of its own available mineral resources and capabilities. At the same time, we will work with international partners, whether net importers similar to the UK, such as the EU, or major producers, like Canada or Australia, to build more resilient and diversified supply chains. By leveraging our strengths – such as world-class research and development, midstream processing and recycling capabilities, and vibrant capital markets – we will secure a resilient, sustainable supply of critical minerals for the Industrial Strategy’s 8 growth-driving sectors.

To focus efforts across government and support collaboration with industry, we have 2 key policy objectives:

• optimise domestic production
• build resilient UK and global supply networks

Optimising domestic production of critical minerals will help protect UK supply against global trade and supply chain disruptions. It is key that the UK makes the most of its mineral deposits while cultivating our midstream processing and recycling to help enable a circular economy and reduce the impact of external shocks.

We will do so by supporting UK businesses through our strong public finance offer, including the National Wealth Fund (NWF) and UK Export Finance (UKEF). We will provide support on energy prices for eligible businesses, including a new British Industrial Competitiveness Scheme (BICS) and will launch a consultation on eligibility for the scheme shortly.

We will support permitting for innovative projects through the Environment Agency’s priority tracked service and understand and support the skills required in the UK, in collaboration with Skills England and the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). And following the 2025 Spending Review, the Department for Business and Trade (DBT) will provide funding support of up to £50 million for critical mineral projects in the UK, as part of the wider innovation landscape.

We will work with industry to explore a demand aggregation platform to map their demand for critical minerals across the UK. This will support government and industry to have a much richer picture of UK industrial demand across many downstream sectors. In doing so, it will enable better decisions on where to target government engagement and support to help UK companies invest to secure a critical mineral supply internationally and de-risk their further business.

We will also consider options to implement targeted, industry-led resilience measures for the UK defence sector. Measures could include stockpiling, including through procurement mechanisms. This aligns with the Ministry of Defence’s commitments to build resilience in critical mineral supplies for UK defence and use its procurement levers to promote resilient defence supply chains set out in the Defence Industrial Strategy 2025 sector plan.

To ensure the UK has a secure, diverse supply of critical minerals and to limit our exposure to global shocks, we will support UK industry and identify investment opportunities in shared supply chains by building and leveraging international partnerships. Our international partners will benefit from the UK’s world class capital markets, financial services sector, public finance institutions, world leading academic research, technological innovation, and geological, mining and technical expertise, in developing these deeper partnerships.

We will support this more targeted international approach through engagement in multilateral forums such as the G7, G20, Minerals Security Partnership (MSP), International Energy Agency (IEA) and NATO, along with promoting responsible and transparent supply chains through initiatives such as the Global Clean Power Alliance (GCPA). These multilateral organisations and initiatives play an important role in coordinating investment and action on supply chains, setting common standards and promoting responsible and transparent supply chains.

Finally, to support our 2 key policy objectives, we are building on the existing list of critical minerals by also introducing the UK’s first growth minerals list. This will complement the Critical Mineral Intelligence Centre’s UK 2024 criticality assessment by anticipating future demand of minerals for the Industrial Strategy’s growth-driving sectors. As we plan for future criticality and growth assessments, we will evaluate which additional minerals and materials will need to be in scope to reflect the UK economy’s growing demands amidst evolving global supply chain dynamics.

To drive progress towards Vision 2035, we are setting out our ambition in tangible terms, ensuring progress can be measured and tracked. We recognise the fast-changing nature of the critical minerals landscape, so we will be agile and responsive to new, emerging challenges in our strategy implementation while ensuring we are delivering our long-term vision.

Vision 2035

The UK’s Industrial Strategy and the accompanying sector plans set out how the government’s mission of kick-starting economic growth will be achieved. Critical minerals are identified as a foundational industry to the majority of the Industrial Strategy’s growth-driving sectors and are vital to delivering the growth mission. However, the current geopolitical and trade environment reflect the complexity of critical minerals’ supply chains and persistent market challenges.

A proactive approach is needed to ensure the UK retains and future-proofs our supply of critical minerals. Working in close partnership with industry, including producers, traders and users of critical minerals, this new, targeted Critical Minerals Strategy sets a shared long-term ambition for addressing these complex market challenges and supporting the growth-driving sectors.

To anticipate future demand for growth-driving sectors and to help realise government’s missions over the next 10 years, our strategy sets out a clear vision for UK critical mineral supply chains to 2035:

The UK has the critical minerals it needs to drive economic growth and the clean energy transition, harnessing our competitive advantage in midstream processing and recycling of critical minerals.

Features of the ambition

To ensure clear industry and government progress towards delivering the Vision 2035 in partnership, we define success as:

• at least 10% of annual UK demand for critical minerals (see Table 1) in the aggregate is met through domestic production (primary extraction, processing and refining of critical minerals) by 2035
  • as part of this, at least 50,000 tonnes of lithium (or lithium carbonate equivalent^{[footnote 1]}) is produced domestically by 2035
• 20% of total annual UK demand for critical minerals is met through recycling of products to recover critical minerals by 2035
• supply is diversified, so that no more than 60% of the UK’s annual demand for critical minerals in the aggregate is supplied by any one country by 2035^{[footnote 2]}

Success will require sustained effort, delivered by private investment and through the actions and choices of critical mineral producers, traders and users. the government will set the conditions for success by facilitating and assisting private sector activity through the measures in this strategy.

UK strengths

We will leverage the UK’s range of existing strengths in critical minerals to boost our domestic production while demonstrating what the UK brings to international growth partnerships. The UK’s strengths are outlined as follows.

Research and development (R&D) and innovation

The UK has an extensive network of universities and academic centres of research on critical minerals. Institutions such as the Camborne School of Mines, University of Birmingham, and Queens University Belfast are developing key technologies and knowledge to support UK industry and unlock innovation across disciplines – including chemistry, metallurgy, geology, midstream processing, recycling and mining engineering. The British Geological Survey, a world-leading geological survey and global geoscience organisation, supports innovation, through monitoring and innovative projects which address the changing scientific challenges of stakeholders. We also need to ensure we maintain and grow our human capital across such institutions to achieve our Vision 2035.

Midstream processing and recycling expertise

In April 2025, Frazer-Nash Consultancy, in partnership with the Critical Minerals Association (CMA) and the Materials Processing Institute (MPI), delivered a report assessing the potential to grow the UK’s midstream processing and recycling capability. The report highlights the UK’s well established and growing capabilities in refining and recycling specific critical minerals, such as lithium, REEs and PGMs, all to high Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) standards.

Expertise across the value chain and the UK’s mineral wealth

The UK offers outstanding capabilities across the full mining and minerals value chain (the stages of turning mined minerals into finished products) at home and overseas. Hosting both global mining major and junior miners, UK companies provide expertise across the mining lifecycle from extraction to midstream processing and recycling to supporting services such as finance, legal, and consultancy.

Furthermore, the UK has distinct pockets of mineral wealth with a deep mining history, such as:

• tungsten and tin in Devon and Cornwall
• lithium in Cornwall, Teesside and County Durham
• exploration underway for copper and zinc in Anglesey
• tellurium and antimony in Mid-Tyrone
• nickel and cobalt in Aberdeenshire

Centre of mining finance and metals trading

London plays a key role in developing domestic projects and mobilising finance internationally, contributing to the development of resilient and sustainable supply chains. A range of mining companies are listed on the London Stock Exchange (LSE), and the City of London continues to operate as a centre for mining finance. The London Metal Exchange (LME) is a global hub for metals trading which supports critical minerals trading with physically settled exchange traded contracts in aluminium, cobalt, nickel, copper, tin and zinc, and a cash settled contract in lithium. It is planning to launch an expanded market for sustainably sourced metals which will support responsible transparent supply chains. The exchange is closely consulting with stakeholders on proposals for 4 key metals: aluminium, zinc, copper, and nickel.

In addition, ICE Futures Europe – the UK exchange that hosts trading in half the world’s crude and refined oil futures – has recently expanded into critical minerals with the introduction of 4 battery material contracts in lithium and cobalt. Through this, the UK can help facilitate solutions to the price transparency challenges and also provide certainty and stability to businesses.

Regional clusters

UK strengths are concentrated in clusters across the UK – including Aberdeen, Belfast, Birmingham, Cornwall, Devon, County Durham, Fort William, South Wales and Teesside – where the right expertise, geological and geographical assets make these places optimal for domestic production. Additionally, the UK’s investment zones and freeports, such as Teesside, offer a strong base on which to build and scale up critical mineral businesses. These will be strengthened through the Industrial Strategy Zones Action Plan.

International development and diplomacy

We have a strong diplomatic network with expertise across commercial and development issues to support investments, exports and local development. Our networks and UK mining services expertise means we can support countries’ delivery of critical minerals projects, helping to reduce negative impacts on local communities, environmental damage and risks around the initiation or exacerbation of conflict.

The UK has been a part of crucial standards bodies such as the International Standards Organisation (ISO). Our ISO membership through the British Standards Institution (BSI) ensures we can influence global standards to increase transparency while promoting responsible practices. In turn, this creates highly visible and resilient global supply.

Source； UK government

• [Editor:tianyawei]