The Ministry of Defence has set out how it will spend £5.4 billion maintaining and upgrading the UK’s Typhoon fleet, confirming the programme covers 107 aircraft and includes new radar, communications, software, defensive aids and an upgraded helmet-mounted sight.

Conservative MP Andrew Snowden, whose Fylde constituency includes BAE Systems’ Warton site where Typhoon is built, asked for a breakdown of the £5.4 billion Typhoon capability spend detailed on page 44 of the Defence Investment Plan.

Minister for Defence Readiness and Industry Luke Pollard replied on 8 July: “The £5.4 billion Typhoon spend detailed in the DIP comprises the planned spend to maintain and upgrade the UK’s 107 Typhoons. It includes radar, communications, and software upgrades, new defensive aids systems, and improvements to weapons systems such as the upgraded helmet mounted sight.”

The 107 figure confirms the size of the fleet the money is intended to sustain, spanning the Typhoons based at RAF Coningsby and RAF Lossiemouth that fly Quick Reaction Alert, NATO air policing and, most recently, air defence patrols alongside F-35 jets from HMS Prince of Wales during Operation Firecrest.

The radar reference points to the continued rollout of the E-Scan AESA radar across the fleet, which upgrades the aircraft’s ability to detect and track multiple targets simultaneously, while the helmet-mounted sight allows pilots to cue weapons simply by looking at a target. The Defence Investment Plan separately confirms Typhoon will be sustained and upgraded into the 2040s, remaining the backbone of UK air defence alongside the F-35 and, eventually, GCAP.

The answer, though, does not break the £5.4 billion down by individual upgrade programme or give a value for each element listed, nor does it specify a delivery timetable for the radar, communications and defensive aids work beyond the general commitment already set out in the plan.

Lisa West
Lisa West
Lisa holds a degree in Media and Communication from Glasgow Caledonian University. With a background in media, she plays a key role in the editorial team, managing industry news and maintaining the standards of the publication's online community.

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88 COMMENTS

    • About £60m for the USAF, a little more for partner nations like the UK, and a little bit more again for non-partner export nations like Finland. Probably not more than £70m, though.

      That said, given this money for the Typhoon will upgrade their radar systems, and F-35As are currently being delivered without their radars, I think it’s money well-spent. 🙂

        • I think it’d be wrong to say that either the F35 or Typhoon are less capable.
          They have different capabilities. The F35 can take off from a carrier, use it’s stealth and it’s got a much better radar (although that gap will close a little when the Typhoon upgrades are complete).
          The Typhoon has the ability to deploy more weapons (and more advanced ones (e.g. Meteor vs AIM120) and standoff weapons, it’s more suitable for air policing, where stealth is not a requirement, and per-hour it is cheaper to fly

          • The F35 has smaller radar cross section from all directions and has a built in jamming system, and a coms system that’s designed to specify control drone wingmen. The Typhoon is more expensive, has no built in jammer, a reduced radar section from the front only and ability to control drones. Banging on about air policing ignores the fact that a generation 4.5 aircraft has already been shot down by a long range Chinese air to air missile. No point in paying for flying coffins

            • Yes, but if you’re scrambling on a QRA to intercept a Russian Bear or Blackjack coming out of Lossiemouth, stealth isn’t the priority. You need an interceptor that is exceptionally fast to climb and transit, has excellent range, and carries long-range BVR weapons. The Typhoon is built exactly for this—it dominates in top speed (Mach 2+) and energy retention compared to the F-35. Plus, the Typhoon’s upcoming ECRS Mk2 radar will give it world-class electronic warfare and jamming capabilities.

              The F-35 is a flying sensor-fusion powerhouse, but it isn’t designed to be a high-speed sprint interceptor. The well-documented thermal limits on its stealth coating during sustained supersonic afterburner use mean it isn’t the tool you want for routine, high-speed air policing.

              That’s not to say the F-35 isn’t fantastic; for Day-1 SEAD operations inside heavily contested airspace, you’d pick it every time. But that is exactly the point: they both have distinct, complementary roles in the RAF. Going to a single-jet fleet just wouldn’t work.

            • It does have a built in EW system. The DASS system includes Electronic Countermeasures Systems. Plus two towed radar decoys that are housed in the starboard wingtip pod.

              • Yep, I was just about to correct him 🙂 Tiffy’s defensive suite is pretty comprehensive in the grand scheme.

                • Yep, it’s very good. And going to get better. Hopefully the T2 jets will receive the ECRS MK2 to avoid the fleet within fleets pain for fleet managers.

            • Technically Typhoon does have a “built-in” jammer. As it uses the Leonardo Britecloud disposable jammers for self-protection. Admittedly this is not in the same class as the German Typhoon ECR variant they are buying that are fitted with the Saab EW suite.

        • I’d say holding onto the aircraft we have is a good idea. Especially given these are the aircraft that fire our most capable BVRAAMs and cruise missiles, and are significantly cheaper to maintain.

          Having to wait for another five years, for a trickle of airframes to begin, several of which will not arrive combat-capable, seems like a bad idea.

        • F35 forces reliance on the USA. Every time I think about being tied to Trump-era America I break out in a cold sweat; or I would if we weren’t having relentless 30+-degree heat waves.

          • I have the same problem with our AUKUS subs using an America Combat information system and American vertical launch tubes.
            Even if they elect a real president in the next cycle ( inspite of the voter suppression and blatant gerrymandering) . Trump is a symptom not a cause and they could just as easily elect a Trump 2.0.

      • With or without an engine? The Danes are paying >$115M each, with an engine, I think. Operating costs, through the roof, check out Defence Analysis view.

        • Full combat availability at 25% isn’t great either – Upgrades and software insanely expensive as are through life maintenance costs

      • Agreed, I’d rather be putting money into Typhoon, especially as any and all extra-nice bits of tech are sovereign and can be plugged over into Tempest. There’s a value to the £50M right there.

        • Absolutely Joe, We need to invest in our sovereign technology and manufacturing base – The value in skills and capability is obvious! rather then supporting foreign companies who then have the ability to block our exports or use of the equipment

      • Seems the Americans build for but not with too. And of course our present F-35s will need expensive updates too and in particular to get them to a point where they can even support upgrades and further weaponry and power the sensors more generally (if they even can or bother with some or all our present ones). Fact is keeping complex jets up to date is an expensive business and at least with Typhoons we are in control of what we do and when, sadly F-35s are mostly show ponies as things stand, Typhoons the vital workhorses.

      • Fly away it’s 102 million dollars.. the price you quoted does not include the engine.

        But that’s for zero spares or support packages.. add in those and your looking at 120 million + per aircraft, because you have to buy a spares and support package.

      • We could have 24 shiny new Typhoons and still afford the upgrades which as always seems overly expensive for such a small fleet. What with effectively, the cancellation of the F35 program, let’s not be coy about it, there is no increase in the number of available aircraft. Period. Once again, vast sums boasted, but static growth to the fleet. That is the message from this government to the US and Europe. Yes, Russia is a massive, real threat but you go ahead and buy new aircraft, we will upgrade ours but no new squadrons. Disappointing as anticipated but there’s no smoke and mirrors here, it’s very much all in plain sight.

    • £50m per aircraft sounds like a lot, but spread across the lifetime of the programme out to around 2040, it isn’t quite as much as it first appears.

    • Not spread evenly either. Only the tranche 3s are getting the new Radar I believe, unless those plans have changed.
      So potentially spending much more than £50m per jet. I think the ones getting the Radar were going to be at least £80m based on earlier articles.

      • £80 million per airframe for the tranche3 jets!!!

        For an upgrade is absolutely bloody ridiculous.
        Somone is taking the right royal piss.

        Might as well replace them with Gripen E, highly capable, cheaper to buy new then refurbishing used airframes, already has an excellent ASAR and its ‘much’ cheaper to operate than Thypoon by a massive margin.

        Not as capable as Thypoon, perhaps not, but there’s not much in it and streets ahead of anything Ivan can muster.

        You would still have the bulk of the Thypoon fleet Captor M too.

        It would be far more cost effective and allow a high low fleet with GCAP.

        Tongue in cheek of course, but it really does seem like another great example of the MIC pissing our money away….. Again.

        I dont see value for money here, but President Burnham Bounce will sort it all out, I’m sure.

    • Still cheaper than the f35 running costs of 35,000 per hour flown in maintenance costs.

      Plus the standard 70% downtime.

    • Typhoon is capable as long as you stop meddling with it.

      Soon the f35 will be shown up for the scam it is but all those air marshalls will not be held to account over the wasted billions

      Something the RAF has done for a hundred years. It’s their fault the carriers have no combat capabilities just like they lied to kill off the old carrier fleet in the 70s. Harriet was killed off to save the bae contracts for tornado maintenance which cost ten times for a quarter of the capabilities

    • 107 is actually more than was previously thought/mentioned/stated on here and a few other sites, so not too bad a number really.
      Trouble Is that they will dwindle over the next decade or so whilst F35 and then Tempest get added.

      Who knows what the figures will be In the future.

      • Yes, I think the original plan was for the 40 odd tranche 3s to get the new RADAR, right? So all 107 means is a significant improvement in fleet-wide capability, if this is correct.

        • If the MoD had decided to fit all 107 Typhoons with ECRS Mk2, I’d have expected them to make a much bigger deal of it, as that would be a significant expansion of the current programme.

          The announcement says the 107-aircraft fleet will receive upgrades, but it doesn’t say every aircraft will receive every upgrade. As things stand, the only confirmed ECRS Mk2 procurement remains the Tranche 3 fleet.

        • Not sure about any of the other 67 but 40 are deffo having the Radar. It was more the fact that after the T1 Cuts, Typhoon strength seemed to be less than 107 mentioned here and Availability was about 70 at a push.
          I think some juggling of figures are behind this, just like CH2 numbers.

          Hell, we even have 42 Jaguars on a list !

          • We have 111. 4 T1 jets remain in the Falklands until next year. Then it will be 107. But like any fast jet fleet, not all 107 are available on any given day. Through the support contract, BAE Systems guarantees X number of jets available on any give day, and X number are in deep maintenance and upgrade. The daily number available can be surged if necessary. Typhoon availability remains high. And the RAF achieve a very high output from a relatively small fleet. More than we did from a considerably larger Tornado fleet. Advances in tech and engineering practices go a long way.

            • Yes Robert, That pretty much covers It I’d say.

              So on any given day, probably two thirds availability would give @70 Typhoons and maybe 20 (ish) F35B’s.

              Scary numbers though.

              • It is, and it isn’t. We can do so much more now with less. They put 24 F35s on the POW last year for a couple of weeks. In the Harrier days, we never deployed 24 Harrier GR7s in one deployment. Never. 12 was a major push. 18 deployed for Op Telic in 2003 and that really was max effort from a fleet of 79 airframes. The Typhoon force today can deploy a similar number of aircraft that it took 142 Tornado GR4s to achieve, but with far greater capability. We all want more fast jets, but the RAF would rather have fewer but very capable fast jets, rather then more less capable ones just to look good on a org chart.

          • It doesn’t seem to say that but I do recall previous articles recently that say 40 for the Radar. It seems to say that the whole fleet will be given various other upgrades though.

            • Hi pal, this UKDJ article has caused some confusion here. The £5.4bn is the figure given through the DIP to see Typhoon through into the 2040s. I can see why some have jumped to the conclusion that it is a large amount of money purely for radar upgrades and the other goodies mentioned, but it is an all-in figure to keep the fleet operating ‘safe 👀😬’ until they are replaced by Tempest.

              Parliamentary Q&A:

              “The £5.4 billion funds UK Typhoon and our participation in the European programme out to 2040 and provides the baseline to keep our aircraft operating into the 2040s. It will upgrade radars, communications and weapons systems across the fleet, as well as assuring airworthiness and safety. This investment ensures that the Typhoon remains a safe and effective weapons platform and adds valuable capability upgrades. These upgrades will allow Typhoon to continue to deliver current NATO operational tasks, support UK industry, and keep UK airspace safe.”

      • 👍 107 is fine for peacetime but given the time it takes to train and build means that in the event of a conflict there’s zero resilience.
        In motor insurance terms the DIP has promised us fully comprehensive cover in 10-15years time – in the meantime were only on 3rd party fire & theft!!

      • The 107 is a fib really as there are only 97 tranche 2 and 3 FGR4s… the extra 10 they are adding to this are the 10 tranche 2 2 seater trainers… front line wise the only number that matters is FGR4s and that number is 97….

        • Wrong, there are 67 Tranche 2 aircraft of which 6 are two seat fully combat capable trainers and the 40 tranche 3 aircraft are all single seat. So 101 single seat and 6 twins.

  4. Stonking highly capable world beating but barely 100 of them before hostilities even start. Same logic applies as to SAMs it doesn’t matter how brilliant they are if you run out of them after week 2.

    • Less than 100.. it’s a bit of a lie of omission as only 97 of those are FGR4s, 10 of them are 2 seater trainers.

  5. We need to spend money on maintaining what we have and adapting it for the world we live in today.

    In theory we should have new aircraft in 10 years or so …. and a billion drones.

  6. Take those 42 Jags, retrofit the old Typhoon RADARs onto a modified Jag nose cone and, Bob’s your uncle, a squadron of 12 fast jets (with spares) to do the QRA job of intercepting Bears. Might have their work cut out for them if the Blackjacks ‘turn-and-burn’ but hey …. offer them to the Irish?

    • Awesome idea, think you might be overestimating the flyability of those Jags though.
      If they’d been any good then India would’ve bought them as spares. They bought nine of the better condition airframes in the last couple of weeks.
      None of them were in flying condition.

    • You do realise how slow the Jag is, as in how slow it accelerates. It was worse than a Tornado on a hot day. Take off in hot countries required nearly the full length of the runway. It most certainly could not do a vertical climb immediately after rotating like a EE Lightning or Typhoon. For some crazy reason India loves the Jag and are doing the radar mod to their jets at the moment.

    • We should have ordered more years ago and ended up with a much larger fleet now. But I definitely wouldn’t be ordering more today. Invest as much as possible in the current fleet, with plenty of that investment carrying over into Tempest, but we won’t want Typhoon in the 2050s and 2060s.

      #ThatPlaneHasFlown

      • I would get those tranche 1s they still have stashed in a shed… one of the poor little buggers only ever flew for 5 hours.. essentially the RAF never took him off the ground.

  8. Just to be clear.. 107 typhoons is NOT 107 front line FGR4s, it’s 97 FGR4s. The extra 10 are 2 seater trainers, not front line fighters.

  9. Spain, for example, will have more Typhoons than the United Kingdom in the near future.

    Spain has ordered 45 additional units belonging to the phases of the Falcon I and Falcon II program, bringing its fleet total to 115 Eurofighters.

  10. This not about aircraft prices; £50 million … as if.

    it’s about the total platform based spending for “maintaining and upgrading the UK’s Typhoon fleet, it confirms the programme covers 107 aircraft and includes new radar, communications, software, defensive aids and an upgraded helmet-mounted sight.” (top of the story) the Typhoon ‘gets’ £5.4 billion over a four-year period.

    The gov. explicitly separates the shiny upgrades from the day-to-day running costs.

    The plan allocates exactly £1.1 billion to complete the physical capability modifications, as in buying the ECRS Mk2 radar hardware, the Striker II helmets, and weapon system software updates. Only 38 new production radars plus modifications to 2 existing test systems, so out of the UK’s 107 active Typhoons, only 38 frontline aircraft; the advanced Tranche 3 standard jets are actually getting the new radar hardware.

    The remaining £4.3 billion is purely baseline funding to maintain the aircraft and assure airworthiness and safety through to 2040. So, the remaining Typhoons, mainly tranche 2 aircraft, will keep their existing mechanically scanned radar systems, for those 69 aircraft their share of the £5.4 billion spend doesn’t go toward shiny new radar hardware. Instead, it pays for their running costs; keeping their existing, older mechanical radars maintained and fitting them with the new Striker II digital helmets, updating their mission software, and upgrading their communication arrays and Defensive Aids Sub-Systems (DASS) so they can still fire modern missiles.

    Dividing the £4.3 billion running cost portion across the 107 aircraft over a roughly four year planning cycle shows that the UK spends about £10 million per jet, per year just on day to day upkeep. That money vanishes into highly unglamorous things that aren’t shiny new gadgets. those £££ go toward things like the ‘Eurofighter tax’; paying the mandatory international fees to the Eurofighter consortium to keep the global spare parts supply chain open. it goes towards the need to routinely pull apart the Rolls-Royce EJ200 engines to replace stressed turbine blades or towards the costs of constantly X raying the airframes for micro-fractures caused by pulling high-G turns.

    Anyone looking at the headline £5.4 billion figure and thinking the RAF is getting £5.4 billion worth of brand-new laser beams and radar sensors has read it wrong. The vast majority of that money is simply the eye watering cost of keeping the lights on in the hanger.

  11. The plan has long been to upgrade just the 40 tranche 3 Typhoons with the new ECRS AESA radar. I read somewhere that this would cost close on £50m per aircraft, which seems a staggering amount, but it involves a complete systems upgrade with new displays, sensors etc.

    It will leave us with a fleet within a fleet, as the 67 tranche 2 aircraft will soldier on with their less capable mechanical radars.

    Overall, we don’t have nearly enough Typhoons. To maintain 4 frontline squadrons, 2 at Lossie, 2 at Coningsby, even at a reduced strength of 10 frontline a/c per sqn, plus field forward flights in Estonia, Cyprus and Falklands – and should really have one forward in Germany/Poland – plus the OEU, OCU and Agressor Sqn, if that still exists, would require 127 aircraft minimum. That is 20 more than we have. It is a very minimalist air defence force by any yardstick. It will be 15 years at least until GCAP starts appearing in any numbers to start replacing the tranche 2 Typhoons.

    We really needed to order a further tranche of at least 20, but alas no spare money in the DIP for that.

    • The contract value for equipping 40 Tranche 3 Typhoons with ECRS Mk2 is £453 million.
      This was awarded to BAE Systems (prime contractor), Leonardo UK, and Parker Meggitt in January 2026 for full production and integration of the new AESA radar. It covers 38 new radars plus refurbishment of two test sets to equip the full Tranche 3 fleet by around 2030.
      This is the dedicated production contract but includes further development costs but is separate to earlier development and long-lead contracts at £205 million. so in all the development of ECRS Mk2 and fitting to 40 Tranche 3 will have cost £658 million. However if we extended it to the Tranche 2 the development costs will be rolled into them too lowering the overall cost per aircraft.

    • We won’t order any more Typhoons but the T2 Typhoons are mostly less than 3,000 hours and as we can extend the airframe hours to 9,000 total giving them an extra 6,000 hours which easily get’s them until 2040’s which makes equipping them with ECRS Mk2 a no brainer, the actual radar without development costs included is £5 million. We’d need both T2/T3 Typhoons to be upgraded with the LTE improvements from Eurofighter which updates all the computer hardware and DASS/Pretorian and the LAD (A single Large Area Display in the cockpit which enables the information to be displayed unlike the three small displays now). But this would be in the region of £15 million per aircraft so for a fraction of the flyaway price of a T4/5 Typhoon we have the equivalent capability and in numbers. The drones being designed to fly with Typhoon are to be attritable so won’t be fitted with £5 million advanced AESA radars therefore the Typhoon needs to act as a guard and 40 is not enough we need all 107. Another good reason is the ECRS Mk2 “Frying” Capability: The ECRS Mk2 is structurally a Directed Energy Weapon. Because it utilizes a moving “repositioner” plate to tilt the radar face up to 180 degrees, it can focus an incredibly tight, high-power beam of radio frequency energy at a localized swarm of surveillance or FPV drones. It doesn’t just jam them; it burns out their commercial guidance circuits.

  14. Andy Burnham is going to order new build Typhoons and Hawks and navalise the GCAP Tempest with the f35 to be slowly phased out. He will also order a restart of we177 free fall nuclear bomb production and clearance to use them on the Typhoon and GCAP Tempest at the earliest opportunity. A longer term effort will be started to replace Trident with a British ballistic missile. A wide reaching enquiry is to be started into the infiltration of the UK defence and treasury establishment by US deep state actors. This will usher in a more grown up and pragmatic relationship with the US and an end to the one sided and damaging so called special relationship.

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