Jaguar Land Rover: five weeks of zero cars and a £1.9bn bill for Britain

In late August 2025, a cyberattack forced Jaguar Land Rover to shut down its IT systems. From 1 September, its factories in the UK and worldwide stopped for about five weeks. In September, JLR did not build a single car.

The bill

• About £1.9bn estimated cost to the UK economy, per the Cyber Monitoring Centre.
• Around 5,000 organisations affected across the supply chain.
• UK car production in September fell to its lowest level since 1952.

Why small businesses should care

Most of the 5,000 affected organisations were not attacked. They were parts makers, logistics firms and service companies whose biggest customer suddenly stopped ordering. A small supplier rarely has five weeks of cash to wait it out.

What to do this week

• List the one or two customers or suppliers you could not survive losing for a month.
• Ask them how their staff are trained to spot attacks.
• Write a short plan for running the business if key systems go dark.