Metsä Wood cuts UK operations: 140 jobs at stake

When one of your biggest customers decides to go in a different direction, everything else changes overnight. That's exactly what's happening now for Finnish company Metsä Wood in the UK market.

Metsä Wood, one of Europe's leading manufacturers of value-added wood products - from birch and spruce plywood to Kerto® LVL engineered beams - announced on February 10 downsizing its UK operations. Around 140 positions are targeted for restructuring, out of a total of nearly 280 employees the company employs in its two UK factories.

What actually happened?

The official reason given by Metsä Wood: „significant changes in the competitive landscape and evolving customer requirements.” Translated from corporate-speak, this essentially means the loss of a key partner. According to the British publication Timber Trades Journal, The retail chain B&Q - part of the Kingfisher Group and one of the Island's DIY retail giants - has decided not to renew its supply contract with Metsä Wood after a competitive tender process.

The impact is being felt first and foremost at the factory in Boston, Lincolnshire, a manufacturing facility with a nearly century-long history (established in 1928), employing over 250 people. It manufactures and distributes a wide range of products - softwood lumber, MDF profiles, door frames, fire retardant panels and various wood-based materials. The factory has been a major supplier to the UK DIY and construction market.

The second site, the plant in King's Lynn (Norfolk), which specializes in the production of Finnjoist® I-beam beams and pressure impregnation treatments for the building materials market, does not appear to be directly affected by the restructuring.

A strong company in a difficult market

Metsä Wood UK is not a company in financial difficulty. According to its latest public reports, in the 2024 financial year it recorded sales of £173.3 million and a pre-tax profit of £8.7 million - more than double the previous year. However, the profit was also impacted by the sale of the Widnes site, completed in December 2024, which generated a gain of £6.7m.

On a group level, Metsä Wood is part of the Metsä Group, a Finnish forest industry behemoth owned by some 90,000 forest owners with total sales of €5.8 billion. Metsä Wood alone generated sales of €0.5 billion in 2025, with around 1,600 employees globally and production facilities in Finland and Estonia.

What's next

James Davenport, managing director of Metsä Wood UK, said the immediate priority is to support employees through this transition process. The company has begun collective consultations with employees and insists it remains committed to the UK market, with the intention of continuing to supply high quality Nordic wood products.