As brought up through the thread, it sounds more plausible that the hardware talent is most useful near the factories, and due to globalisation and pay discrepancy, fewer factories are being built in UK.

With compensation catching up in developing economies, it will make less and less sense to move production outside a "wealthy" country, and you'll see resurrection of domestic hardware companies.

Right?

How far away are we from the tipping point is beyond me, though (and there are always "cheaper" countries still, even if it's mostly due to lacking legislation and environment protection rules).