There were quite a few who were involved within the British war effort. Probably the biggest industry involved was Vickers-Armstrong; VA took orders from all the services, and was a specialist in British tank production. you've got other industries that transferred from the civilian economy into production also; you've got j. Fowler, Vulcan Foundry, Ruston and Hornsby, North British Locomotion, Harland and Wolff, Metropolitan Cammell, Nuffield Mechanization & Aero, English Electric, Leyland motors, Fodens, Wests Gas, Rly. Carriage firm, crabtree. These were the firms that took part in the pre-war armament production; obviously when war commenced it expanded, but this is as far as my knowledge extends. In answer to your second question, I can only offer little. British industry before the Second World War was individual companies with small workshops; the only exceptions being companies such as Vickers. Most armament industries went bankrupt in the 1920's and early 30's during what they call the 'lean' years, ( as military funding was massively cut back after WW1). This basically created only a small nucleus of firms for all services with experience with armaments. The importance of this is when in 1939 Britain went to war, only around 30% of the industrial capacity was producing armaments; thus, these small individual businesses were swapped to armament production of which they had little to no experience, and were not use to the concept of mass production; rather, they were used to producing small numbers of items made by hand to offer high quality. Although a department of munitions was created on the outbreak, it took a long time for industry to adapt; it wasn't until 1942, alongside the help of american industry, that the British army started to be fully provided with modern equipment. I hope this helps!

I got all this primary information whilst researching my dissertation, all located at The National Archives, Kew, London. The sources are: WO194/57:Reports 1-6, Military Vehicles and engineering establishment, 1933-1939 AVIA46/188: DRAFT To official history: tank development. CAB24/281/15: The increase in manufacturing capacity for certain armaments to build up greater war potential and to meet foreign order. Thomas Inskip, 19th December 1938.

Secondary authors who are incredibly useful are: Harris, J. P, Men, Ideas, and Tanks: British Military Thought and Armoured Forces, 1903-1939. Gibbs, N, Grand Strategy. Postan, M, British War Production. Benjamin Coombe, Tank production and the war economy.

For the second question.

In America, woman workers drove the economy as you likely know. The advent of pneumatic tools and the refining of the assembly line, along with the fact that women weren't really looking for dates, and couldn't participate in many luxury hobbies, both due to the war, really powered America through the war and manufacturing. Before WW2, pneumatic tools were a rare luxury, and I put emphasis on rare. A few years before WW2, 1936 I would say, pneumatic tools were really refined. As early as 1650 primitive pneumatic tools were created, but not widely used, and in the middle and late 1800s they were really expanded on, but not until a bit before WW2 were they widely used in factories. The conveyor belt was another driving factor in manufacturing, allowing each worker to focus on one job and get it done hundreds, or even thousands of times per day. Ford is credited as the creator of the conveyor belt. I'm not sure about your first question.