With a diverse and geographically spread membership of 390 companies, the Rail Forum delivers collaborative, value-driven and inclusive support to strengthen the UK rail industry.
We support our members by:
- providing unrivalled networking opportunities
- hosting topical workshops and seminars
- offering a broad range of events across each calendar year – across rolling stock and Infrastructure
- providing a collective voice for members and promoting the industry to a global market
- acting as an honest broker with key clients
- driving and co-ordinating school engagement and skills development initiatives to ensure members can access the skills they need for the future
- providing specific opportunities for members to work collaboratively to secure new business
- supporting inward and outward trade missions and export initiatives.
- facilitating collaborative stands at trade exhibitions
The Rail Forum has close links with Department for Transport, Great British Railways, Department for Business and Trade, Regional Transport Executives, and other industry groups and stakeholders. In addition, we have close co-operation agreements with the Rail Freight Group (RFG) and the Civil Engineering Contractor’s Association (CECA).
The Rail Forum actively supports manufacturing, building connections across sectors through the Network Portal, which we were a founding partner and promoting the UK supply chain capability. This is supported by our strategic relationship with MakeUK providing our members with affiliate MakeUK status and access to certain activities and events.
We also support Innovation and are working closely with InnovateUK to strengthen members capability as well as provide effective channels for promoting this capability.
Our reach extends beyond the UK, and in partnership with the Department for Business & Trade, we continue to conduit international opportunities across many markets and specific support with Africa, following our developing relationship with the Southern African Railways Association. A little closer to home, our membership with the European Railways Cluster Initiative brings together both international growth with innovation.
Find out more on our Join Us page.
Supporting Our Charities
The rail industry has a long tradition of supporting, and benefitting from, a number of charities and we at the Rail Forum are proud to work with our members to ‘give something back’. Each year we support one or more charities through events such as our Annual Charity Golf Day and our Annual Christmas Lunch. By getting involved as a member you are able to add your support for these charities as part of your Corporate Social Responsibility agenda.
