In the UK, the most noteworthy thing we do (apart from that paper lion, BAE) is building wings for Airbus. Not designing - BUILDING. The greatest aero companies are now assembling wings for a French commercial company.
Erm agree with pretty much everything else you said but my buddy who designed the fuel system for the A380 and spent 10 years getting it right would probably argue that we do a little more in the UK than just build wings. He's now working on the landing gear for the next one at Airbus. Works in Bristol and has done for the last 15 years or so and headed up huge design teams there working on both projects, plus there's all the suppliers, majority UK based who have their own design teams and engineers as well.
We think choosing tyres for bikes n cars is tricky - try choosing for a bloody huge plane! :-)