Rolls-Royce seals £9 billion deal with UK government on submarine support

Rolls-Royce Submarines, which has supplied the power plant for the UK’s nuclear-powered submarines for six decades, had signed the biggest deal it has ever made with the UK Ministry of Defence.

The deal, worth approximately £9 billion (US$11 million), is large enough to have been given its own name – Unity – and amounts to a long-term provision of more of the same, as the UK moves into the era of the Dreadnought submarine and the AUKUS submarine (the result of a tripartite deal between the UK, the US and Australia).

The deal will mean Rolls-Royce continues to provide plant and support to the UK’s nuclear-powered submarines for at least the next eight years, including all the vessels in the Vanguard class which currently provide the UK’s at-sea nuclear deterrent.

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Assuming production deadlines are hit, the contract will also power the first of the Dreadnought class that has been scheduled to replace the Vanguards in the early 2030s.

Announcing the deal, UK Defence Secretary John Healey said it would “deliver a long-term boost to British business, jobs and national security”.

Healey added that in line with the government’s ‘Plan for Change’, “this deal with Rolls-Royce…will support high-skilled UK jobs who equip the thousands of submariners that keep us all safe”. 

“We are showing defence can be an engine for growth, while also driving better value for taxpayer money,” he remarked.

Rolls-Royce recently set up an office in Glasgow, bankrolled by the UK Government, specifically to handle work on the Dreadnought and AUKUS submarines.

The government has committed to ‘triple-locking’ the country’s nuclear deterrent, which involves building four new nuclear submarines in Barrow-in-Furness, maintaining the continuous at-sea nuclear deterrent currently delivered by the Vanguard submarines, and delivering all necessary future upgrades.

Related Equipment in Defence Insight

Vanguard Class

Dreadnought Class

AUKUS SSN