Babcock wins £1.25bn Type 31 frigate contract

The next generation of Royal Navy warships will be built by Babcock, with the Ministry of Defence awarding preferred bidder status to a consortium led by the company and also including Thales. The Type 31 frigate will be built to a design known as Arrowhead 140, with each ship costing some £250m – a quarter of the cost per ship of the larger Type 26 frigates currently being built by BAE Systems in Glasgow.

Arrowhead 140 is derived from a design originally developed for the Danish Navy, and is described by Babcock as “a capable, adaptable and technology enabled global frigate”. Designed to be suitable for exports, the ships will be built using the modular construction method pioneered during the building of the Queen Elizabeth class aircraft carriers (in which Babcock was a consortium partner) with Rosyth serving as the central integration site. Detailed design work is scheduled to begin as soon as formal contracts have been signed, with construction starting in 2021 and the first ship in class to be launched in 2023. Babcock expects the program to run until 2027.