Work on the Royal Fleet Auxiliary’s three new Fleet Solid Support ships is progressing on schedule and within budget, with all three due to enter service in the early 2030s, according to the Ministry of Defence.
The department gave the update as Navantia UK opened Resurgent Hall in Belfast, adding 5,000 square metres of fabrication space with new cranes, robotic plasma cutting and a mechanised panel line. It said “Work is progressing on schedule and within budget” on RFA Resurgent, Reliant and Resourceful, backed by £1.6 billion of funding, and that Navantia UK is leading on fabrication and final assembly as prime contractor. The ships will replenish Royal Navy task groups at sea.
Luke Pollard, Minister for Defence Readiness and Industry, said: “Few sights in the UK are more evocative of our industrial heritage than the Samson and Goliath cranes, and it’s fitting that this new hall sits on the shoulders of these iconic giants. Belfast continues with its proud shipbuilding history by building the modern shipbuilding capability the country needs today, with this new fabrication hall at the heart of it. Navantia’s £157 million investment across its UK yards shows what sustained investment in shipbuilding delivers: good jobs, growing skills, and the support ships our Navy needs.”
Keith Bethell, the National Armaments Director Group’s Maritime Director, said: “The opening of the Resurgent Fabrication Hall is a clear sign that growth in UK shipbuilding is happening right now, in Belfast. This investment is renewing our industrial capability, creating skilled jobs and apprenticeships, and strengthening the supply chains that underpin our national resilience. It gives us the modern capability we need to deliver the Fleet Solid Support ships for the Royal Fleet Auxiliary and lays the foundations for Belfast to compete for future UK naval and maritime programmes.”
Maria Eagle, then a defence minister, said in March 2025 that the first ship was expected in service by 2031, while the effect of Navantia UK’s takeover of Harland & Wolff was still being assessed. Pollard said that September that the impact on approved cost and in-service dates was still being assessed and would be mitigated as far as possible.
Part of the first ship’s fabrication later moved to Spain to avoid schedule slippage, with more UK work on the second and third ships in return, Pollard told the Defence Committee in November 2025, and he said the contract is fixed-price. Steel cutting began at Appledore in December 2025 and the keel of RFA Resurgent was laid in September.
Very welcome news.
The early 2030’s is going to be a very happy time for the RN. With 3 FSS, 4 SSBN, 13 Frigates and dozens of drones all arriving at the same time.
That’s fine but there should be some law introduced that would prevent future governments making same mistakes.
That could be minimum fleet numbers, tonnage.
…which gets us back to an absolute bear minimum and nothing more.
Good news, but all the chickens have come home to roost for the RN. Who would have thought delaying the new frigate program and not investing in sub maintenance facilities would have been a bad idea.