Rolls-Royce Submarines today announced plans to open new offices in Cardiff and Glasgow to attract the best talent and meet growth in demand from the Royal Navy and the recent AUKUS announcement.
The locations of satellite offices in Cardiff and Glasgow, funded by the UK Ministry of Defence (MOD), have been selected to help access the skilled talent pools in both regions, with more than 100 jobs being created in each city.
The increase in demand for technical specialists will see new offices opened in St Mellons, Cardiff, and at the Airport Business Park in Glasgow.
“The business intends to attract the best engineers and specialists from around the UK to work on a growing portfolio of defence nuclear projects. In March 2023, it was confirmed that Rolls-Royce Submarines would provide all the nuclear reactor plants that will power new attack submarines as part of the tri-lateral agreement between Australia, the UK and US.
In Cardiff, Rolls-Royce Submarines is looking to attract people with a background in mechanical design, materials engineering, structural integrity analysis, thermal analysis and fluid dynamics. For Glasgow, the focus is on recruiting those with a pedigree in electrical controls and instrumentation and cyber security.”
Steve Carlier, President – Rolls-Royce Submarines, said:
“From our commitments to maintaining the UK’s nuclear deterrent through our deliveries into the Dreadnought programme, to increased demand as a result of AUKUS, this is a time of unprecedented growth for our business. To help us succeed we want to attract the brightest and best from across the UK to help us build a better world with nuclear. The work secured from recent announcements will see us support UK and Australian submarines well into the second half of this century, so there has never been a better time to join our industry.”
Minister for Defence Procurement, James Cartlidge, said:
“We are excited to continue our partnership with British industry to not only strengthen defence capabilities of the UK and our allies, but also support jobs nationwide. Thousands of jobs will be created and sustained through the AUKUS partnership and this is another example of how the UK government continues to work towards providing growth and prosperity all across the country.”
Rolls-Royce Submarines say they currently employs more than 4,000 people to design, manufacture and provide in-service support to the pressurised water reactors that power every boat in the Royal Navy’s submarine fleet.
“In 2022, To ensure a steady pipeline of future talent into the industry, Rolls-Royce, with investment from the MOD, opened a new Nuclear Skills Academy in Derby. It will provide 200 apprenticeships each year for at least the next decade. Rolls-Royce is currently supporting the existing Astute and Dreadnought boat build programmes through the delivery of reactor plant and associated components. Additionally, it provides frontline support across the world for reactor plant equipment from its Operations Centre in Derby and supports the submarines when in the Barrow-in-Furness shipyard and the naval bases at Devonport and Faslane.”
4,000 people just work work on the reactor, this is why we can’t have nice things or atleast not many of them. Playing in the big leagues is not cheap as Australia is now finding out.
That being said we are one of a handful of countries on the planet that has such a capability and ours is one of the best two by a long long way.
As the Argentine’s found out in 1982 if you don’t have SSN’s your probably not leaving port in a shooting war.
But. But….Poland has 1,000 SkySabre, and 1,000 Tanks, and 1,000 guns and and Italy has a bigger fleet than us!…..🙄
You’re quite right, this capability costs a lot of money and few nations posses it, such as those two.
If we ever get back to cold war spending then I would love to see a second Barrow constructing submarines. A second site will allow the order of more Astute’s without interrupting the Dreadnought programme. Then when the Aukus subs are built the order (hopefully far more than 7) can be split between the sites. Would Cardiff be a good second site?