£135m contract will sustain 100 North West BAE Systems jobs

Defence group BAE Systems has won a £135m contract to upgrade its Eurofighter Typhoon aircraft, supporting 100 jobs at its factories in Samlesbury and Warton in Lancashire.

The work has been requested by the Eurofighter consortium, which includes Airbus, BAE Systems and Leonardo, and will increase the variety of precision-guided munitions it carries and improve its high speed secure sharing of data.

Richard Hamilton, Typhoon programme director of Europe for BAE Systems, said: “This contract marks another significant milestone in the continued development of Typhoon’s capability as we apply our breadth of expertise to further advance its combat air capability, ensuring it has the technologies required for the future battlespace.”

He added: “The contract will sustain 100 highly-skilled engineering roles in the North West.”

The Typhoon is flown by seven nations – Germany, Italy, Spain, the UK, Austria, Oman and Saudi Arabia and is expected to remain operational until at least the middle of the century.

Among the range of current development work for the aircraft is new large touch screen cockpit displays.

It is estimated that the Typhoon programme directly employs more than 5,000 at BAE Systems and supports a further 10,000 jobs across the UK economy.