BAE Systems has said preparations are well underway to begin construction of the sixth Type 26 frigate for the Royal Navy, HMS Newcastle, with long-lead equipment already in progress.
The update was included in the company’s full-year 2025 results, published on 18 February, as the defence giant reported record sales and a growing order backlog amid rising global defence demand.
In its results statement, BAE Systems said: “Preparations to start construction of the sixth Type 26 frigate, HMS Newcastle, are well underway with long-lead equipment items already in progress.”
The Type 26 frigates are being built on the River Clyde in Glasgow, with work split between BAE’s Govan and Scotstoun shipyards. The programme is intended to deliver eight advanced anti-submarine warfare frigates for the Royal Navy, forming a key part of the service’s future surface fleet.
BAE Systems highlighted continued progress on the wider Type 26 programme, noting that final outfitting work is ongoing on HMS Glasgow and HMS Cardiff at Scotstoun, while HMS Belfast, HMS Birmingham and HMS Sheffield are progressing through construction at the company’s Govan site.
The firm also pointed to recent investment in its Glasgow facilities, including the opening of the Janet Harvey Hall at Govan, a large covered assembly facility designed to allow two Type 26 frigates to be built side by side. BAE Systems said the hall is already being used for work on HMS Belfast and HMS Birmingham.
The company’s results statement also highlighted the opening of its Applied Shipbuilding Academy in Glasgow, a £12 million training facility intended to support the long-term skills pipeline for warship construction on the Clyde.
BAE Systems’ Chief Executive Charles Woodburn said the company remains well positioned to support defence demand, citing what he described as a “new era of defence spending” driven by escalating security challenges. BAE Systems reported sales of £30.6 billion in 2025 and said its order backlog rose to a record £83.7 billion.
Vessel 5 was laid down en of Nov 2025.
So if vessel 6 is being laid down soon that’s still 1 year and 4/5 months apart from vessel 5.
Alittle worrying they can’t managed 12 month interval?
Unless a Norway ship has secretly slipped through in that gap?
I believe the batch 2’s were where the 1 year production interval was meant to come in, so from HMS Sheffield onwards, could be wrong. Also the build tempo was set by HMG so the costs were more spread out.
HMS Birmingham is the first of the batch 2’s
My mistake. The idea is 1 a year from I guess from launch of HMS Birmingham then. Unless it goes to Norway of course.
Might be nice to hear the HMS Glasgow was out of the dry dock and onto the Clyde undergoing Contractors trials. That would be welcome progress.
I agree it’s painful how long that is taking.
And I don’t think Scotston can take more than 2 hulls so there is a pinch point in delivery.
Indeed, all investment seems to have gone into speeding up hull fabrication.
We may well end up seeing completed hulls queued up for fitting out.
They can only dry dock two hills but there is a third dry dock which could be used for a vessel afloat and still give access to most of both sides of the vessel.
It would be relatively easy to extend the dry dock with new gates further out and perhaps 40 metres of new dock side to make a third operationally useful dry dock.
In my mind I’ve already assumed the T26 has been reduced to a class of 6 with 2 sold to Norway. There will be no backfill just statements about synergy with Norway to share the high north tasks, 8 will just become the new 6 plus 2 Norway.
Youre being ridiculously pessemistic, because Norway will be taking more than 2 RN “builds” if we end up with a staggered production schedule, saying were only to get 4-5 by your logic?
I’m not ruling out ending up with 4 or 5, then a secondary order of T31 to make the numbers back up, so on paper it’s still 13 in total. Depending on how the contract was agreed with BAE, we could end up with statements of ambition to get back to a class of 8 for the RN in the future if required that never transpires, so 5 goes to us and 5 to Norway making a total class of 10. By the time the 10 are built it’s time to move onto the type 83. Billions saved. Which is why I’m thinking if we end up with 6 it us best case.
Big investments and the Subcontracting of Work has now gone into the Type 26 Builds, I doubt if BAE would have gone to the trouble if the Total is only 8 ships, I think they were always confident of more orders.
Hopefully but the treasury have a long history of last minute cuts, recall the T45 was a class of 12 originally although all the focus on defence now will prevent that.
The Treasury are a law unto themselves. Hopefully IF the T31 DO NOT get their own ASW (Merlin aside) capability their Lordships will be pushing for the full 8(+) T26s as originally specified by UK.