British manufacturing growth has weakened over the past couple of months as European companies decided to divert supply chains away from the world's fifth-biggest economy while the Brexit crisis rumbled on, an industry survey showed.

The Make UK manufacturing organisation and accountants BDO said output and orders continued to grow but at a slower rate than in the early months of 2019. Britain's economy picked up early this year, helped by the biggest rise in factory output in 20 years as companies raced to stockpile goods to avoid disruption to supply chains in the run-up to the original March 29 Brexit deadline. But the latest quarterly Make UK survey showed a weakening of hiring and investment intentions.

Make UK expects British factory output to grow just 0.2% this year and 0.8% in 2020, weaker than the rest of the economy.

The Make UK/BDO survey covered 344 companies between May 1 and May 22.