UK F-35 deliveries to pause until the early 2030s

The UK does not expect to take delivery of any further F-35 aircraft until the early 2030s, a written parliamentary answer has confirmed, opening a gap of several years in deliveries despite the government having announced a follow-on order beyond the initial 48 jets more than a year ago.

Ben Obese-Jecty, the Conservative MP for Huntingdon, asked how many F-35A jets will be purchased and when the decision will be taken, referencing the Defence Investment Plan.

Minister for Defence Readiness and Industry Luke Pollard replied on 9 July: “As previously announced, twelve F-35A will be ordered. The exact delivery profile of F-35 aircraft is subject to negotiation between the UK and multi-national Joint Program Office, but the UK hopes to start taking delivery of the next batch of F-35 aircraft from the early 2030s.”

The answer puts a date on a gap that has been implicit since the government announced in June 2025 that the UK’s next tranche of 27 F-35s would include 12 conventional take-off F-35As for the NATO nuclear mission alongside further F-35Bs. Deliveries of the initial 48 F-35Bs, ordered across the programme’s early production lots, are now complete, with one aircraft lost in a carrier operating accident in 2021, meaning that from the arrival of the final jets of that first batch until the early 2030s the fleet will grow no further. The hedged language, that the UK “hopes” to start taking delivery from the early 2030s subject to negotiation with the Joint Program Office, leaves open the possibility of the gap extending further.

The pause carries consequences across several commitments. The 12 F-35As, which will be based at RAF Marham and join NATO’s dual-capable aircraft mission carrying US B61 gravity bombs, cannot be operational in the nuclear role until they exist, and a senior defence official confirmed at the Defence Investment Plan’s launch that the aim is to field them as soon as possible after 2030.

The F-35B force, meanwhile, is generating the air wing for HMS Prince of Wales on Operation Firecrest and the first NATO air defence operations flown from a European carrier, tasks that will fall on an unchanged number of airframes for the rest of the decade while the carriers’ role expands, including the planned use of HMS Queen Elizabeth as a floating headquarters for NATO’s Allied Reaction Force maritime component.