The UK aerospace sector is set to receive a significant boost, with the Prime Minister announcing a £975 million investment over the next five years to support innovation, create highly skilled jobs, and maintain the nation’s lead in cutting-edge aviation technology.
This funding extension for the Aerospace Technology Institute (ATI) Programme is aimed at bolstering key aerospace hubs in regions like Broughton, Filton, and Derby. The initiative seeks to enhance the UK’s leadership in wings and engine manufacturing while supporting the development of zero-emission flight technologies.
Bidding for project funding will open in January 2025, with work expected to commence by autumn.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, visiting Wales for the first time since the Budget, highlighted the industry’s importance, stating, “From modern aircraft engines to helicopters, the UK’s aerospace industry is truly world-class. By accelerating our investment, we unlock the tech of the future and take a crucial step in delivering growth and opportunity across the country.”
Wales, home to one of the world’s largest aerospace clusters employing over 20,000 people, has been a focal point of this initiative. The Prime Minister also announced £49 million worth of aerospace projects in Wales, recognising its pivotal role in designing and assembling around half of the world’s large civil aircraft wings.
Business and Trade Secretary Jonathan Reynolds emphasised the sector’s economic impact, stating, “Our world-class aerospace sector added almost £40 billion to the economy last year. Backing the sector with this funding ensures the UK continues to pioneer new technologies while delivering economic growth felt across the country.”
The investment also aligns with the government’s broader Industrial Strategy, supporting net-zero ambitions and reinforcing the aerospace industry’s critical role in defence.
Airbus UK Chairman John Harrison welcomed the announcement, noting, “The commitment of £975 million offers certainty for sustainable aviation investment and highly skilled jobs, delivering on the UK’s R&D and growth plan.”
At the UK Defence Journal, we aim to deliver accurate and timely news on defence matters. We rely on the support of readers like you to maintain our independence and high-quality journalism. Please consider making a one-off donation to help us continue our work. Click here to donate. Thank you for your support!
Am I the only one who thinks the latest GCAP rendering looks like a stealthy Buccaneer?
Nope. I see it as well. Let’s hope it is as “buccaneering” as the original. I once saw them do a low level sweep at about 200 feet, if that. Awesome.
The picture heading the article is not the latest and no, it does not look like a Buccaneer.
More like a cross between a Vulcan and an F22 in my opinion.
Definitely Dorito-y at the back end.
A stubby F-15 with pointier wings for me.
AA
Now that you mention it yes there is a similarity, in the wing-plan especially.
Really what is needed is a new tranche typhoon order of 40 jets and a medium rotor order of 30-40 rotors ( in the UK) that will secure the UK sovereign capacity ready for the next generation of aircraft and give the armed forces what is needed.
Recent reports say only upcoming jet orders are the 20 or so F35 and NMH is a dumpster fire
I’m really not sure that maintaining sovereign helicopter production is best use of money.
The future in that direction is drones.
The number of cabs we have is now so tiny that domestic production has ceased to make sense.
I don’t know how much design we really have in the UK for helicopters – does anyone know? It has been a long time since Merlin was designed?
Domestic fast jet we are still in the game.
But consider, the game will be medium and heavy drones…in reality for that you need a rotor industry. If you’re going to build heavy drones you need a rotor industry. For the UK being able to produce something like the bell V 247 will be a key sovereign ability.
Group 4 and groups 5 runway independent drones are very likely to be some of the primary, tactical lift, transport, fire support and ISTAR platforms of the future…being able to produce a line of these will probably be the most vital of national sovereign abilities..and it’s only the rotor manufacturers such as bell and Leonardo that will have the expertise to develop and build these.
So for me the medium rotor programme is not there to protect the traditional medium rotor industry as that’s possibly in its last generation…but the same people skills and production lines that produced the medium rotors will will be needed to design and produce the Group 4 and 5 vertical landing and take of drones and we will need those by the shed load.
The Navy’s Proteus rotary demonstrator was going to be a clean-sheet design out of Yeovil and we saw all sorts of faciful teasers, including a twin rotor design. I don’t know when they abandoned the attempt, but the demonstrator became an adaptation of the AW09 commercial helicopter. To me that suggests even though they don’t quite have the capability, it was close enough a few years ago that Leonardo tried to reboot it.
It beggars belief that in a country of supposedly intelligent and well educated people, the words ” net zero” can have any place in a defence requirement specification. CO2 is a beneficial life giving gas which is already at a dangerously low level in our atmosphere.
Colin it is the tinfoil hat brigade that believes net zero applies to everything including the military. However, that is the least of our worries if the farmers go on strike in the next few weeks and you see panic buying and empty shelves. I mean we have an extreme left wing government and allegedly a tory party that condones orgies in the houses of parliament as one of their litany of deeds….I mean what do you expect from such intellectual titans. The only people more stupid than these MPs are those that voted for Labour and Tories and expected a different outcome. Never mind two-tier Sir Kier and his band of merry “they, them, him’s and hers” will continue to enact dangerous ideologically extreme left wing policies…Mark my words two-tier Sir Kier is more dangerous than Jeremy Corbyn (the sad old delusional Marxist). At least with Corbyn you knew he was never getting anywhere near the levers of power. The only thing I can say is that “tool maker” made the wrong tool… The UK deserves everything it gets by voting for Labour and the Tories…at least I wasn’t part of the problem….every man and woman in the UK that could vote needs to look themselves in the mirror and ask themselves the question am I stupid and why did I vote Labour and the Tories and expect anything more than chaos and disaster.
Unfortunately it is more like tin foil hat army.
UK will not know what will hit them if they continue to destroy the free economy path.
I’m afraid we get the government we deserve…too many Brits expect something for nothing. The expansion of the welfare budget under Blair left an entitlement culture and this was accelerated under the Tories. Too few Brits understand the free economy and most work in the public sector…I’m afraid the UK is literally screwed…just organizing to head to the US now Trump is in power (thank god!).
Totally agree with you there. Not guilty of voting for either Labour or the treacherous Tories, I should add.
Mass immigration needs to be stopped and the mass deportations of useless low-skilled state-spongers to begin in earnest. We need to put the work-shy millions on food vouchers so they might start feeding their kids instead of spending their money on fags, booze and weed.
After 50 years of welfare-sponsored reverse-eugenics, we need desperate actions to save this once-great nation. Otherwise I feel there’s almost nothing left worth defending at this point.
Unfortunately we have budgets for the shirkers not the workers and we have internationalized the welfare budget (both Labour and the Tories have done this to us – for the Tories blame Dave Cameron, Michael Gove, and Gideon Oliver Osborne and their acolytes that treated Blair as a prophet and advisor). Wondered why we are a mecca for the world’s feckless…well when you hand out free bus passes, free accommodation, free health service and free money every week for those that have come in illegally then of course you become the world’s mecca for the feckless. Nothing short of a Trump deportation campaign (removing the millions that came here illegally since1997) will save Britain. I wish Trump all the best in removing the 20 million illegals n the US (mainly hardened criminals). Looking after the world’s feckless means you have less cash for the MoD and the productive sectors of the economy, Moreover, the minimum wage becomes the maximum wage and productivity sinks like a stone as well and we have an increase in people with alcoholism and drug issues. Then your welfare budget expands and you have a continued deficit and expanded national debt and a balance of payment crisis (and the chickens are coming home to roost soon believe me as we have already sold off the family silver and there is nothing left to sell). Everything (and I mean everything) from housing to productivity, debt and balance of payment issues, lack of investment in training can be placed at the door step of mass migration including the dip in the numbers having children from the native population. But what do you expect from a Tory party that allegedly had mass orgies in parliament and two-tier Sir Kier and his band of merry (they, them, him and her). I’ve given up on the UK (truly) and have just applied for work over in the US (another top engineer the UK will lose). But hey ho,…I’ll have a good life whilst I watch the UK sink into the abyss….If the Tories think Kemi Badenoch is the answer they are asking the wrong question as well her advisor was one Michael Gove (the blue Marxist). But I repeat again…the morons in parliament are just a mirror of the morons that vote for them. The British people have done it to themselves but they still won’t wake up and still vote for more punishment’s from the same crowd of incompetents.
I think everyone agrees that the welfare budget is out of control.
I’m generally in favour for better support for those who loose their jobs through no fault of their own. Or those who are genuinely disabled – as the father of a Blue Badge entitled child I get quite annoyed with blue badges being handed out like confetti and all the attendant entitlements.
Equally I get quite annoyed with the huge number of people dined off for their ‘mental health’ working us good for mental health. Knowing a few of these ‘characters’ there is nothing wrong with them that a bit of basic routine wouldn’t sort out.
Also if your mental health means you can no longer work in your primary field you can shift…got to the point I could not deal with death and suffering of children anymore so I shifted to something without death and suffering..we can transition to work that does not shatter our mental health…we just need a we bit of help for the transition.
Unfortunately if we don’t control CO2 the human race will not know what hit it. Man made climate change is actually the single biggest existential threat we face.
Yes and the UK’s net contribution….a massive 1% of global CO2 emissions…I would add that anthropomorphic climate change is still a contentious issue…that is why they change it from global warming to climate change…the climate of the world has been changing for millennia. The current 2024 CO2 content of the earth’s atmosphere is 0.04%. Humans emit 29 gigatons of CO2 annually compared to 750 gigatons from natural sources. A much bigger influence on our climate is natural variations in earth’s orbit and natural variations in solar activity (radiative transfer is the key aspect and GCMs or global climate models fail to address this physics adequately using 1-D models). How do I know…I used to develop these models. What are the uncertainties…substantial…grid resolution very coarse and non-linear dynamics over decades treated poorly. Model errors massive, parametric uncertainties massive and discretisation errors very large….historical data from ice core samples is used to calibrate models but then moving back 100s of thousands of years is again problematical. Personally I think overpopulation in the developing world is one of the most pressing issues as this really does have a massive impact upon the environment.
The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is tiny – what is there is essential for Plant Growth,you know stuff like Crops that we need to help provide things like Food.
Conservatives weren’t great and did as all parties ultimately do where tribal infighting rules.
Part of the problem was that there was no discernible policy platform once Cameron left the stage – I didn’t agree with him but I knew roughly what would happen.
In reality military capabilities are so niche, it’s essentially irrelevant to be pursing net zero military platforms…consider there are 34 million cars in the UK..net zero on those is critical for the survival of civilisation… a batch of a 1000 IFVs and APCs not so much..
Peanuts
Why is it not the same shape as the Firefox from the film?
That was the perfect aircraft design.
Sounds an impressive number. But over 5 years. It’s peanuts. But, i guess its better than nothing, and far more cash will be invested from the private sector.
Public and private investment often come in tandem.
Private investors are more likely to back a horse if there is some semblance of government support because the government (past 14 years notwithstanding) usually keeps backing that horse until the race is done to save political face.
Begging private investors to invest in undercapitalised areas without any skin in the game usually fails. This 200m per year should/could yield some good results.
The govt should just put the regulations in place (for the civil space) and allow companies to spend their own R&D budgets on moving to cleaner energy, not handing out millions of taxpayer funds into bottomless pits.
It seems like a meaningless gesture sort of announcement – £195M a year for 5 years starting in years time is another way of putting it. Who will evaluate the bids? is the money assured or one of those Labour initiatives which will slowly disappear. Governments are no good at picking winners in technology. As Jonathan says why not just order another batch of Typhoons to replace the T1’s due to be taken out of service but of course an order is real investment and a government commitment. Surely they should wait for the outcome of the Defence review next spring/summer
There is always a reason to wait and if government can’t find one, they can always order an enquiry into something tangential. The SDR shouldn’t be used as a reason to stop spending for a year.