Following the news that Defence Equipment and Support (DE&S) has awarded Babcock, Elbit Systems and QinetiQ a £100m contract to provide the Royal Navy with electronic warfare (EW) systems;

Madeline Wild, Associate Defense Analyst at GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company, comments:

“Awarding UK-based Babcock the Royal Navy EW contract is an example of the government acting in line with its plans to stimulate the British economy with the recently increased defense spend. Babcock and QinetiQ are not traditionally linked to electronic warfare, so their involvement speaks to the government’s commitment to invest in domestic technology.

“The EW systems are the first phase of the £500m Maritime Electronics Warfare Programme (MEWP), which will provide technology for the Type 45 Destroyers, Type 26 and 31 frigates, along with the two Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers.

“This isn’t the only example of the economic benefit of defense investment. The Shadow UAV fleet will be getting a £110m upgrade thanks to a contract with Raytheon. The company may be based in the US, but the majority of the work will be carried out in the UK, and thus the economic benefits will still be felt on UK soil.

“Importantly, many of the jobs from these contracts will be created outside of the southeast region of England in defense manufacturing hubs in the southwest and the north of the country. This aligns with a wider government policy which aims to ‘level up’ the rest of the UK and reduce the geographic economic divide that exists between the north and south.”