CHEMUK grows again with thousands attending the 2025 edition
CHEMUK 2025 opened its doors to over 5,000 visitors last week (excluding exhibitor staff), making this year’s edition the largest to date and representing a 12% growth from 2024.
The full two-day attendance, including exhibitors, topped 7,500, cementing CHEMUK’s position as the UK’s largest trade show for the chemical, process engineering, and formulated product sectors.
Now in the NEC’s largest Hall 5, CHEMUK 2025 presented a record 550+ featured exhibiting companies, spanning some 15,000 sqm, representing literally hundreds of product, technology and service brands supporting industry.
Show founder and CEO Ian Stone summed up the show, “This year set a new ‘high-water mark’ for CHEMUK’s appeal and influence across the sector, with all metrics yet again on a strong upward trajectory. From 09.30 on Day 1, the show was absolutely buzzing with engagement and busy aisles in every corner of the giant Hall 5. Fantastic energy from the hundreds upon hundreds of fact-finding and procurement conversations taking place on stands, in breakout meeting zones, and topped up with five enthusiastically attended conference stages running continuously, and many with standing room only!”
The 2025 CHEMUK event embraced five focused show zones reflecting the different sub-sectors of industry: The Chemicals Supply Show, The Formulated Product Manufacturer Show, The Chemicals Management Show, The Chemical Laboratory Show, and The Process & Chemical Engineering Show.
With 200+ brand-new exhibitors joining the 2025 show this year, attendees throughout the multi-layered chemicals, downstream chemical consumer and industrial products, and chemical-dependent industries were able to network and see and meet with suppliers, technology and solutions providers, and an entire ecosystem supporting breakthrough Innovation, R&D programmes and scale-up, raw materials sourcing, chemicals procurement, formulation and reaction processing, plant and production operations, quality management, distribution and supply chain, sustainability, HSE and regulatory management and more – meeting the sector’s critical current and future challenges.
Ian added: “Whatever a visitor is sourcing – from chemical intermediates to chemical process pumps, from flow reactor technologies to regulatory services, from specialised logistics partners to spill containment systems, and so much more, CHEMUK is the total destination for all chemistry and chemical process-dependent industries.”
A crucial component of the CHEMUK 25 experience was, again, the vast free-to-attend open conference programme. Spanning five purpose-built integrated stages and providing 50+ hours of topical keynotes and expert presentations, plus CHEMUK’s biggest-ever programme of feature and panel sessions, the CHEMUK 2025 conference was again a massive draw for attendees.
Headlined by curated multi-session programmes from Professional Bodies – the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC), the Institution of Chemical Engineers (IChemE), plus the IMechE Process Industries Division – 2025 saw a record cross-section of feature panels and sessions – including the UK Government, Innovate UK’s Business Connect, theHenry Royce Institute, Aston University, the British Plastics Federation (BPF), NEPIC, UK-ASCM, the Centre for Process Innovation (CPI), the Chemical Business Association (CBA), Cosmetics Cluster UK, the British Adhesives & Sealants Assoc (BASA), the British Chemicals Association (BCA), the UK Lubricants Assoc (UKLA), BASF, IBioIC (The Industrial Biotechnology Innovation Centre), the Solvents Industry Assoc (SIA), the Alliance of Chemical Associations (ACA), BCMPA, Process Industries Net Zero CDT, the UK & Ireland Spill Association, and more.
Ian Stone described CHEMUK’s annual conference programme as: “a unique annual offering of knowledge sharing, addressing the biggest challenges and opportunities affecting and influencing the sector, providing vital intelligence on where the sector is heading plus empowering and informing crucial next steps. It’s where experts from all points step out of their more specialised silos and share knowledge, ideas, foster collaboration, understanding, joined-up solutions and consensus on an industry scale.”
With floor space reservations for CHEMUK 2026 already at their fastest-ever pace, the show’s organisers are anticipating CHEMUK will again be the biggest two days of the year for the UK’s chemical, process engineering, and formulated product sectors.
The 2026 staging of CHEMUK takes place on 20 & 21 May 2026 at the Birmingham NEC.
