Greenville, Detroit or Columbus? Best US Base for UK Advanced Manufacturing

European manufacturers solved this problem decades ago, and the answer surprises most British companies.

BMW, Michelin, Volvo and Mercedes-Benz did not build their American operations in the industrial north. They built them in South Carolina, and they have kept expanding there ever since.

That does not make Greenville the automatic answer. It does mean the received wisdom about where American manufacturing lives is about forty years out of date.

Four questions to answer before you pick a city

What are you actually putting in the US? A sales and service operation needs different things from a plant. Most UK manufacturers start with the former and talk about the latter.

Do you need engineers or operators? Detroit has the deepest engineering bench in the country. South Carolina has the deepest European-managed production workforce.

Who are your suppliers? Proximity to tier-one suppliers matters more than proximity to customers in most manufacturing businesses.

What does the employment picture cost? These three states differ by more than double on minimum wage, and that flows through an operator-heavy payroll.

Greenville: where European manufacturers already went

South Carolina’s industrial base is more international than any other American state’s, and the figures are striking.

More than 1,100 international firms operate there, employing over 170,000 workers and accounting for 10% of private industry employment, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond.

BMW employs around 11,000 workers at its Greer plant, has invested $14.8 billion, and exported more than $10 billion of vehicles in 2024. Michelin runs about 10,000 employees across 15 facilities, producing 144,000 tyres a day. Volvo employs roughly 2,000, Mercedes-Benz about 1,600 near Charleston.

South Carolina exported $38 billion of goods in 2024, equal to 11.6% of state GDP. Transportation equipment alone accounted for $19.2 billion.

Why this matters for a British company

The value is not the tax position or the land cost, though both help. It is that the local workforce and supplier base already understand how European manufacturers operate.

Apprenticeship culture, quality systems and works-council-style communication norms are familiar in the Upstate in a way they are not in most American regions. A German or British plant manager arriving in Greenville finds people who have worked for European employers before.

The limitation is engineering depth. South Carolina builds well. It does not have Michigan’s density of design and development talent.

Employment rules in South Carolina

South Carolina has no state minimum wage law, so the federal rate of $7.25 applies, per the US Department of Labor. For an operator-heavy payroll that is the lowest base of the three states here.

There is no state pay transparency law, so job adverts carry no salary disclosure requirement. Restrictive covenants are governed by state case law rather than a statutory earnings threshold.

Employment is at-will, which changes termination practice compared with UK norms. Our at-will employment guide covers what that means in practice.

Detroit: the engineering bench nobody else has

Detroit’s reputation is a liability in marketing terms and an asset in hiring terms.

Michigan holds about 1.1 million automotive and mobility jobs, roughly 20% of the state workforce. It ranks first nationally for automotive manufacturing employment at six times the national average, according to the Detroit Regional Chamber.

The occupational concentrations are the real story for a UK engineering business. Michigan has 31,950 mechanical engineers at four times the national average, 26,410 industrial engineers at three times, and 9,610 tool and die makers at five times.

The supplier base is equally concentrated. Ninety-eight of the top 100 North American automotive suppliers operate in Michigan, and 65 are headquartered there. Twenty-six original equipment manufacturers hold headquarters or technical centres in the state.

Who Detroit suits

Detroit suits companies whose US operation is design, development, testing and supplier management rather than volume production.

It suits electrification, materials, industrial software and anything that needs to sit close to automotive engineering decision-making. It is also the obvious base if your buyers are the OEMs themselves.

The caution is that Michigan’s economy remains concentrated. A downturn in automotive is felt across the whole region, which matters if your product sells into a single sector.

Employment rules in Michigan

Michigan’s minimum wage is $13.73 per hour, nearly double the South Carolina rate and a real cost difference across a production workforce.

There is no state pay transparency law requiring salary ranges in adverts. Restrictive covenants are enforceable where reasonable, governed by state law rather than a salary threshold. Our state-by-state non-compete guide sets out how the tests differ across states.

Columbus: the semiconductor bet, with a caveat

Columbus is the city most often cited as the next American manufacturing hub, largely on the strength of one project.

Intel announced more than $28 billion for two chip factories in Licking County, expecting 3,000 Intel positions and 7,000 construction jobs, according to Intel’s own newsroom. A $7.86 billion CHIPS Act award was finalised in November 2024.

The caveat matters. The completion date has moved repeatedly. The original target of end-2025 slipped to end-2026 and has been pushed again since.

A UK company should therefore judge Columbus on what exists rather than on what is promised. That existing base is good: central logistics position, a large Honda footprint, and a lower cost structure than either coast.

If the fab lands as planned, the supplier ecosystem that follows will be substantial. If it slips further, Columbus is still a reasonable mid-cost manufacturing location. Treat the semiconductor story as upside rather than as the reason to go.

We took the same approach to federal energy funding in our guide to choosing a US base for UK cleantech. Announced investment and delivered investment are different things.

Employment rules in Ohio

Ohio’s minimum wage is $11.00 per hour for employers above the annual gross receipts threshold, and $7.25 for smaller employers.

There is no state pay transparency law, and no statutory earnings threshold governing non-competes. The administrative burden sits between South Carolina and Michigan.

Greenville, Detroit and Columbus at a glance

Most UK manufacturers should not start with a plant

The instinct is to think about this as a site selection problem. For most UK manufacturers it is a hiring problem first.

A plant is a large, slow, capital-intensive commitment that assumes US demand you have not yet proved. A commercial and technical services team is cheap, fast and tells you whether the demand is real.

That sequence also keeps your options open. If your first two hires find your buyers cluster in the Midwest, you site the plant accordingly. That beats a decision made in a board meeting in Birmingham.

An Employer of Record lets you place those people in any state without incorporating, which is how most manufacturers we work with run their first US year. Our guide to how an Employer of Record works covers the mechanics, and using an EOR for US market testing covers the approach.

Once you commit to a facility you will need your own entity, and the EOR versus own entity decision sets out when that point arrives. There is also a registration question separate from incorporation, covered in our guide on when a UK company needs to register in the US.

For the broader regional picture, see our comparison of East Coast, West Coast and Middle America strategies. Our guide to unexpected places to hire in the USA covers other markets.

Talk to us before you commit to a city

We help UK and European manufacturers hire US staff without setting up an entity, and we advise on which state suits the roles being recruited.

Get in touch with our team to talk it through.