The Ministry of Defence has confirmed that the construction of the Royal Navy’s new Type 31 frigates is progressing well, with the lead ship HMS Venturer approaching a major milestone.
Responding to a Parliamentary Written Question from James Cartlidge MP (Conservative – South Suffolk) on 28 April, Minister of State for Defence Maria Eagle stated that “the Type 31 programme has made significant progress, with the first frigate, HMS Venturer, nearing structural completion and expecting to be launched later this year.”
The update highlights that work is advancing not only on HMS Venturer but also on subsequent vessels in the class. “HMS Active, the second in class, is also progressing well,” said Ms Eagle, adding that construction on the third frigate, HMS Formidable, is underway following the steel-cutting ceremony held in October 2024.
The Type 31 class, known officially as the Inspiration-class, is intended to deliver a new generation of general-purpose frigates to the Royal Navy, providing flexibility for operations ranging from maritime security to warfighting alongside allies.
The project remains central to the government’s efforts to expand the Royal Navy’s surface fleet and support the UK’s domestic shipbuilding industry, with construction taking place at Rosyth under Babcock International.
Babcock to upgrade military capabilities of Type 31 frigates
Recently, we reported that Babcock had secured a new contract worth approximately £65 million to deliver the Capability Insertion Period (CIP) for all five Type 31 frigates being built for the Royal Navy.
The CIP phase will introduce a series of capability upgrades to the vessels, enhancing their operational effectiveness beyond the baseline design and build specification. These upgrades will be integrated, tested, and refined at Babcock’s Rosyth facility in Scotland, where the Type 31 ships are currently under construction.
Paul Watson, Arrowhead Managing Director at Babcock, said: “This new contract provides additional military capability for the vessels beyond the initial design and build contract. The detailed knowledge that we have of these ships, combined with our forward-thinking design, will enable an efficient installation and through-life support of the systems and equipment.”
Watson added: “As the design and build partner, Babcock is expertly placed to provide the know-how and technical information to deliver these important activities in the development of the ships through the CIP. We are proud of the role we play alongside our customer – their mission is our mission.”
The contract was awarded by Defence Equipment and Support (DE&S), the Ministry of Defence’s procurement arm. Steven Perry, Type 31 Project Manager at DE&S, said: “We are pleased to have awarded Babcock the CIP contract for the Type 31 fleet. This contract will deliver capability upgrades that go beyond the vessel build specification, delivering Type 31 frigates to the Royal Navy that will ensure the UK remains at the forefront of global security.”
Babcock was initially awarded the Type 31 design and build contract in 2019. The company is delivering the Arrowhead 140 design-based frigates, which will form a key component of the Royal Navy’s future surface fleet. Designed for adaptability and global presence, the ships will be capable of operating alongside allies and fulfilling a wide range of missions worldwide.
This is fantastic news, we should all be so very proud having 13 state of the art cutting edge World beating leviathans simply bristling with leading edge technology and incredible weaponry, no other country on the planet can compete with the UK when it puts it’s mind to it.
Rule Britannia.
God save the King.
Sarcasm?
….with a trowel
Going by some other comments of his, he might be being serious. All power to him, positivity is too rare nowadays!
A positive mindset brings peace and tranquillity in a World overflowing with hate and aggression.
Make love, not war.
Live long and prosper.
He’s very very positive.
🇬🇧 😀
Any chance of an actual launch date?
I think we are all desperate for a fix of good RN news with at least another ship in the water.
Quite another thing when she actually starts trials…..
And even something else when she is accepted into the fleet…..
Hopefully looking forward eventually to 8 x T31. Minus the LPDs replaced perhaps with ‘strike frigates’ and retaining the B2 Rivers the RN would have more of a balanced fleet.
Good looking warship, with more capabilities added and expected, as the baseline fit seemed absolutely bare minimum just to be passed good to go by the bean counters! 3 more would be nice, relatively cheap and achievable.
At least 5 big hulls that can have bits bolted on were ordered.
Think how bad things would be by now if that hadn’t come to pass?
The most likely order we will see is three more of these then Labour can say the fleet is set to grow.
Box ticked.
Next problem is how to get to The Robertson Number = number of surface combatants.
I’m betting the number is 30.
Crewing 30 escorts would be difficult. I’d rather see money invested into that at the moment, and to accelerating production on those ships already ordered.
By ‘that’, I mean improving recruitment. It was a bit unclear!
Hi leh..the 30 would not be until mid 2030s and a thing essentially created by cheating and turning the MRSS into surface combatants and not retiring the T45 after they build some T83 ( as everyone knows it was a complete cock up to go down to 6 AAW destroyers and the RN needs 8-9 to generate 3 AAW vessels at anyone time).
Remember ship building and crewing are essentially to completely different funding processes..one is capital funding ( one of large contract) the other is an ongoing annual cost.. you should never use capital funding for annual costs like staffing….if I gave a provider say a million capital funding for a program..I would never let them use it for staffing… as it’s one off and staffing needs an annual budget line,
What’s the definition of a ‘surface combatant’? If you include the batch 2 Rivers, which you could argue are an essential part of a balanced fleet, that would imply another 6 destroyers / frigates. Types and roles TBA??
I don’t think the Rivers count as combatants however. A vital part of the fleet, but not a combatant.
8 T26.
8 T31.
6 T45.
6 MRSS.
No you would not consider the Rivers 2s as surface combatants, essentially the term surface combatant are cruisers, destroyers, frigates and corvettes, it’s a ship designed to fight not patrol.
“Their primary purpose is to engage space, air, surface, and submerged targets with weapons deployed from the ship itself”
From a future surface fleet ( mid 2030s onward) I suspect we will have the following
8 T26
7-8 T31
6 MRSS ( which is likely to end up with a GP frigate armament)
6 T45 ( which I suspect will keep going into the 2040s.. )
2-3 type 83. ( large 10,000-15,000 all singing all dancing AAW vessels that will essentially be stapled to a CBG)
Then I suspect in the 2040s the type 45 will be 1 for 1 replaced with a direct replacement. This is because the RN needs a very high end ASW vessel for the carriers and the new generation radars need a 10,000 to 15,000 ton hull, the RN cannot afford more than a handful of these and yet it needs in the region of 8-9 AAW ships..so it’s going to need to run a primary and secondary AAW escort.
Let’s hope for +5 on top of existing order add a laser on it and call them type 32s if we wish or just t31 batch 2 – keep the line going.
And maybe an additional T26 if ASW needs to be further strengthened? Hopefully plus the Norwegian T26 order.
Let’s hope for +5 on top of existing order add a laser on it and call them type 32s if we wish or just t31 batch 2 – keep the line going. We need to follow the shipping strategy that was outlined and keep for 15 years max .
I think BAE have offered Australia a AAW T26. Definitely doable and why not a couple for the UK?
Because we can’t afford them and we don’t have our next gen of AAW selected
Imagine if we’d ended up with the much smaller BAe offering and where now trying to cram a VLS system into it?
It could never have been anything other than a light patrol frigate, with no growth and little purpose..beyond patrol.
I wonder how much fitting out has been done..
Six years since the order was placed and we have a vague statement about a launch date and no idea on the level of fit out undertaken so far. Whilst we have had the Covid pandemic the resulting programme slippage should be known and therefore a target date for launch should be available.
I have concerns all is not well with this project and we maybe waiting a little longer than we think for these ships to enter service.
Arleigh Burke took four years from order to launch, without covid and with more fitting out done post launch so I don’t think this is exactly shocking.