New figures show the UK manufacturing industry growing rapidly with jobs in the market being created at the fastest rate for 39 months.

The Markit/CIPS purchasing managers index hit 57.5 in June up from 57 in May, where a score over 50 denotes expansion. The index was stronger than most analysts’ expectations and adds to a raft of positive economic data for the UK.

Rob Dobson, senior economist at Markit, said: “UK manufacturing continued to flourish in June, rounding off one of the best quarters for the sector over the past two decades.

“With levels of production surging higher, and order books swollen by a further upswing in demand from both domestic and overseas clients, job creation accelerated to its highest for over three years.

“The goods-producing sector has clearly maintained its leading position in spurring broader economic growth.

“We expect official manufacturing production to have expanded in the second quarter at a pace above the 1.5 per cent registered in the first quarter, making further headway into recovering pre-crisis output levels.”

In further good news for the UK, alterations to the way government officials crunch economic data could mean the downturn was not as severe as first thought.

New Office of National Statistics data is expected to show the economy contracted by 4.1 per cent during the recession in 2009, not the 5.2 per cent previously calculated.