Germany will invest £800m in the UK defence industry over the next decade, creating about 600 skilled jobs across London, Telford, Swindon and Plymouth, the Ministry of Defence confirmed on 23 October 2025. The announcement sat alongside tighter UK–German military cooperation highlighted at RAF Lossiemouth.

Rheinmetall will open a Telford plant to manufacture artillery barrels using British steel from Sheffield Forgemasters. It marks the UK’s first barrel production in a decade and is expected to support hundreds of roles, according to the MoD.

Helsing plans a maritime glider drone facility in Plymouth backed by £350m in artificial intelligence. ARX Robotics will invest £45m and hire about 90 staff, while Stark aims for 100 jobs at a new Wiltshire drone site-its first location outside Germany.

Beyond the headline figures, this is an industrial story. Sheffield steel feeds Shropshire barrels; Devon and Wiltshire assemble uncrewed platforms; London and Swindon host software and systems work. These programmes come with long maintenance tails and steady spares demand-conditions that typically anchor well‑paid jobs in regional economies.

Supply chains will widen quickly. Precision machining, heat treatment, energetics, electronics packaging and independent test houses should see early requests for information as primes map UK content. Firms that already meet Cyber Essentials Plus and export‑control requirements will be better placed when second‑ and third‑tier contracts are let.

Operationally, RAF Lossiemouth’s Poseidon P‑8A fleet will expand joint patrols with Germany in the North Atlantic, with a coordinated Sting Ray lightweight torpedo purchase also noted. German crews have already twice flown from Lossiemouth under NATO’s Baltic Sentry missions.

On cyber, the fifth ‘Trinity House Lighthouse’ project links the UK’s Cyber and Specialist Operations Command with Germany’s Cyber and Information Domain Service via a secure cloud, enabling real‑time data sharing while hardening NATO logistics and transport networks.

One year after the Trinity House Agreement was signed in October 2024, co‑development is taking shape. The MoD cites progress on a Deep Precision Strike weapon with a range beyond 2,000km and fresh agreements to boost bridge‑building equipment for land forces.

For local skills pipelines, the demand signal is clear: CNC and NDT for barrel production; composite lay‑up and avionics for drones; data engineers and ML specialists for AI integration. Expect apprenticeships and mid‑career upskilling to follow as plants move from build‑out to volume.

For investors and SME owners, the practical steps are familiar-start qualification now, firm up security clearances, and budget for audit‑grade traceability. The upside is patient order books tied to NATO rearmament; the risk is schedule drift and export licensing delays. Plan for both.