Britain has published a new offsets policy under which overseas companies that win significant UK defence contracts will be required to invest benefits back into the UK, through jobs and apprenticeships, new or expanded factories, investment in domestic suppliers, or technology transfer. Contracts worth over 50 million pounds will be considered for offsets, and the required benefits could reach the same value as the contract itself, so a 100 million pound contract could carry up to 100 million pounds of UK investment.
The government said it is prioritising buying British wherever possible, and that a new central Offset Authority will agree, value and monitor delivery through dedicated agreements, applied case by case by the Ministry of Defence. The policy applies to a select number of procurements from April 2027, follows more than 35.2 billion pounds spent on defence contracts and services with industry overseas since 2016, and sits alongside a defence investment plan the government put at 298 billion pounds over the next four years.