Defence spending in Northern Ireland hits record high

Ministry of Defence expenditure with industry in Northern Ireland rose by sixty-three per cent in a single year to reach £464 million in 2025-26, the highest level since records began, according to an answer given in Parliament.

Andrew Rosindell, the Reform UK member for Romford, asked the Secretary of State for Defence what recent assessment he had made of the geo-strategic importance of Northern Ireland.

Luke Pollard, the Minister of State for Defence, said: “Northern Ireland has a growing and strategically important defence sector, founded on a strong engineering heritage and backed by robust research competence, collaboration, and world-leading academic institutions. Recent figures show that MOD expenditure with UK industry in Northern Ireland rose by 63% compared to the previous year. In real terms this equates to £464 million in 2025-26, the highest level since records began.

“In recognition of its geo-strategic importance and huge potential to support Defence meet its national objectives, the Northern Ireland Defence Growth Deal was launched earlier this year. It is a £50 million investment aiming to strengthen and grow NI’s defence ecosystem by supporting SMEs to scale capability, access opportunities and contribute to a more resilient UK supply chain.”

Thales in Belfast carries most of that figure, and the Castlereagh site builds Starstreak and the Lightweight Multirole Missile, the weapons that have been fired in quantity in Ukraine and reordered repeatedly since, and the plant has taken contracts worth more than a billion pounds across the past three years while taking on hundreds of staff. Northern Ireland’s defence spend stood at around £190 million in 2023, so the figure has more than doubled in three years.

Harland and Wolff’s Belfast yard sits in the same picture, now under Navantia ownership after the company’s collapse, with a share of the Fleet Solid Support ship programme that will see blocks built in Belfast and Appledore. Spirit AeroSystems, Denroy, Survitec and a substantial cluster of aerospace and engineering small firms feed into the wider total.

The Northern Ireland Defence Growth Deal was launched this year, and this publication reported when Northern Ireland was to be boosted by the defence growth deal. Fifty million pounds aimed at small and medium firms is intended to let the supply chain around the large manufacturers scale up out of its dependence on single contracts.