Gareth Barker

Chief Operating Officer Sheffield Forgemasters

Last Reviewed: September 27, 2026

Executive Summary

Gareth Barker is Chief Operating Officer and a board director of Sheffield Forgemasters, the Sheffield maker of large steel forgings and castings for defence and nuclear customers, which has been owned by the UK Ministry of Defence since 2021. He started at the company as an apprentice machinist and worked his way up through its production divisions to the board, where he now has overall responsibility for site operations, technical and quality output, health, safety and environment, and the delivery of new plant. That remit now centres on a £1.3 billion recapitalisation programme that is rebuilding the company’s Brightside Lane site around a new machine shop and forging line.

Career Highlights

• Appointed to the Sheffield Forgemasters board as Chief Operating Officer in 2021; still named COO in the company’s July 2026 update.
• Became the company’s youngest ever divisional director in 2007, and a director of Sheffield Forgemasters Engineering Limited from 1 July 2007.
• Managing Director of the Forgings Division from 2011, leading about 450 staff, and Group Operations Director from 2016.
• Named an exemplar in The Manufacturer Top 100 in 2023 as a role model to UK manufacturing.
• Responsible for operations through the £1.3 billion recapitalisation programme, including a 30,000 m² machining hall and a 13,000 tonne forging line.

Professional Journey

Barker joined Sheffield Forgemasters as an apprentice at the age of 19. The company’s own accounts differ on when: its 2021 announcement dates it to 1996, while a 2023 interview and The Manufacturer place it in the early 1990s. He has since spoken of the apprenticeship scheme as the company’s most important asset, and he uses his own career as the example.

His early promotions came within production. By his mid-twenties he had moved into management in forge operations, and he later ran the South Machine Shop as general manager. In 2007 he became the company’s youngest ever divisional director, and Companies House records his appointment as a director of Sheffield Forgemasters Engineering Limited that July. He became Forge Operations Director in 2008 with more than 130 staff, then Managing Director of the Forgings Division in 2011 with around 450. He was Group Operations Director from 2016 and also held the role of director of customer programmes.

In May 2021 the company announced his appointment to the board as Chief Operating Officer, 25 years after he started there by its count. In July 2021 the Ministry of Defence took over the company, and the existing management stayed on. Under government ownership Sheffield Forgemasters began a large recapitalisation to secure UK defence supply. In its July 2026 update the company described a £1.3 billion programme covering a 30,000 m² machining hall on the former Cammell Laird Brightside Steel Works site and a 13,000 tonne forging line on Brightside Lane. Barker was quoted as COO, calling the build a reshaping of “the traditional heartland of UK steelmaking” as the company marked 250 years of history.

Education

No degree or formal qualification beyond his apprenticeship at Sheffield Forgemasters was found in any source reviewed.