Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), Britain’s largest carmaker, is facing its most severe operational crisis in years after a crippling cyberattack forced the company to halt production across all its global plants. The disruption, which began on September 1, 2025, has already stretched well into its third week, with JLR confirming on September 16 that production will remain paused until at least September 24. The fallout from the attack is rippling through the automotive sector, raising urgent questions about cybersecurity, supply chain fragility, and the future resilience of one of the UK’s industrial giants.
The cyberattack, attributed to the same group that targeted Marks & Spencer earlier in the year, paralyzed JLR’s core IT systems and halted vehicle manufacturing at its three major UK plants—Solihull, Halewood, and the Wolverhampton engine facility—as well as its R&D hub at Gaydon. The effects have not been limited to the UK. JLR’s interconnected factories in Slovakia, China, Brazil, and India, all reliant on shared digital engineering and planning platforms, have also felt the shockwaves. According to Reuters, the company’s three British plants, which typically churn out about 1,000 cars per day, have now been idle for more than three weeks.
“We have taken this decision as our forensic investigation of the cyber incident continues, and as we consider the different stages of the controlled restart of our global operations, which will take time,” JLR said in an official statement released on September 16. “We are very sorry for the continued disruption this incident is causing and we will continue to update as the investigation progresses.”
For employees, the situation is bleak. The majority of JLR’s 33,000 staff have been told to stay at home since the attack. The company has been in talks with government ministers, including Chris McDonald from the Department of Business and Trade, to discuss possible support measures for its plant workers. According to Autocar, these talks could lead to a furlough scheme reminiscent of those used during the COVID-19 pandemic, with the government subsidizing wages for workers unable to do their jobs. Suppliers, too, may be included in any emergency support as anxiety mounts over the risk of insolvency among smaller firms.
The financial toll is staggering. Business economics professor David Bailey told Automotive Manufacturing Solutions that JLR could be losing up to £50 million a week in lost output—an estimate echoed by other industry sources. That’s nearly £5 million a day, a figure that underscores the scale of the disruption for a company that normally expects to build more than 1,000 vehicles daily. By the time the earliest planned restart date arrives, more than three weeks of production will have been lost, with experts warning that a full recovery could take considerably longer. “Even if they fixed the problem today, you can’t just switch it on and start. It’ll take three to four weeks to ramp things up and get even close to normalisation,” a source told The Telegraph.
Despite rumors swirling that production might not resume until November, JLR has denied giving any official guidance to suppliers about such a timeline. “That’s not a definitive date, that’s a kind of guidance date which they think is sensible,” the anonymous source explained, but a JLR spokesperson was quick to clarify that this is not the company’s official position. Nonetheless, the uncertainty has left many suppliers on edge.
The human cost is becoming increasingly evident. The Unite trade union has warned of impending job losses, especially in the West Midlands, where JLR’s supply chain supports an estimated 104,000 jobs. Jason Richards of Unite told Automotive Manufacturing Solutions, “We’re already seeing employers having discussions on potential redundancies. People have to pay rent, they have to pay mortgages and if they’re not getting any pay, what are they supposed to do? If JLR turns the tap on and expects the supply chain to be waiting, it won’t be there.”
Former Aston Martin CEO Andy Palmer echoed these concerns in an interview with the BBC, warning that the extended shutdown could push some suppliers into bankruptcy. “You hold back in the first week or so of a shutdown; you bear those losses. But then you go into the second week, more information becomes available – then you cut hard. So layoffs are either already happening or are being planned,” Palmer said. Many smaller suppliers have little financial buffer, and the prolonged stoppage threatens to trigger a wave of insolvencies across the sector.
The crisis has also exposed the vulnerabilities of highly integrated manufacturing networks. As Automotive Manufacturing Solutions noted, a single compromised point in a digital production network can cascade across operations in multiple regions. For JLR, the attack has not only stopped the assembly lines but also created chaos in parts ordering and stifled retailers worldwide. The company initially seemed confident that the damage could be quickly contained, but the controlled restart of its digital production networks has proved far slower and more complex than anticipated.
Adding to the anxiety, JLR has confirmed that some data may have been viewed or stolen by third parties during the attack, though it maintains that customer data has not been compromised. The company’s ongoing forensic investigation is expected to take time, and the full extent of the data breach remains unclear.
Government officials have pledged support, with Chris McDonald stating to Reuters that UK government cyber experts are working with JLR to resolve the incident as quickly as possible. The breach is only the latest in a string of high-profile cyber and ransomware attacks targeting major companies in the UK and beyond, with household names like Marks & Spencer and the Co-op also falling victim to increasingly sophisticated hackers.
All of this comes at a challenging moment for JLR, which is already contending with weaker demand in China and Europe, delays to the launch of new electric vehicle models, and ongoing trade uncertainty. In July, the company reported an 11% drop in quarterly sales, partly due to a temporary pause in U.S. shipments after tariffs were imposed. Although exports resumed in May, JLR has cut its profit margin target for fiscal 2026 to 5%-7%, down from 10%, citing these persistent challenges.
The JLR cyberattack has become a cautionary tale for the entire automotive industry, highlighting the critical importance of cybersecurity and the risks inherent in highly integrated, digitalized production systems. As the company works to recover and restore production, the broader sector will be watching closely—and, no doubt, re-examining its own defenses against the growing threat of cybercrime.
For now, the fate of thousands of workers and suppliers hangs in the balance, as JLR, government officials, and industry leaders scramble to contain the fallout from this unprecedented cyber crisis.
