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SolderKing is celebrating eight years as a manufacturer of soldering consumables this month. Established in Yorkshire in 2018, the company has grown into a King's Award winning supplier to OEMs, EMS providers and industrial customers across Europe, with a product range covering every stage of the soldering process.
Those eight years have included Brexit, the pandemic and the component shortages that followed, and Chris Ward, Chief Operating Officer at SolderKing, says the disruption has had a lasting effect on what customers expect from a consumables supplier.
"Before 2020, most of the conversations we had were about price and specification. Since then, customers want to know where a product is made, what stock we hold and how quickly we can respond if something changes on their line. Manufacturing in the UK means we can answer those questions directly. But none of that matters if the product is not consistent. Quality is what customers come to us for in the first place, and it is what keeps them with us."
All SolderKing products are manufactured and tested in-house under an ISO 9001:2015 certified quality management system, which allows the company to maintain availability, control quality at every stage and adapt products or packaging where a customer's process requires it. Full compliance documentation for RoHS, REACH and J-STD flux classification is provided as standard, a requirement that has become increasingly important for suppliers to automotive, defence and aerospace programmes. The company is a member of Made in Britain and holds a Bronze EcoVadis sustainability rating, reflecting its commitment to responsible manufacturing.
That consistency has underpinned steady growth. The range now runs to twelve product categories, from solder alloys, cored wires and pastes through to specialist fluxes for cable and coil, stainless steel and industrial applications, together with stencil cleaners, circuit cleaners and solder masking for assembly, rework and repair. Demand for those products led the company to double the size of its Bridlington facility in 2025, giving it the manufacturing and stock capacity to support customers as it enters its ninth year.
"When we started in 2018 we set out to be a manufacturer that customers could actually talk to, one that makes the product, understands the process and can help solve problems on the line, and that has not changed," said Chris. "What has changed is the scale. The range is bigger, the customer base is wider and we now have the capacity to develop new products and support more customers than at any point in our history. That is where our focus goes next. None of it would have happened without the customers, distributors and partners who have backed us since 2018, or the team here who make the product day in, day out. Thank you to all of them."
