Archer Announces Plans for UK Engineering Hub, Dr. Limhi Somerville to Join in Early 2026 From Vertical Aerospace

Archer has announced plans for a new UK engi­neer­ing hub in South West Eng­land, to sup­port the com­pa­ny’s inten­tion to build and devel­op a team in the coun­try to sup­port its work in the region.

Last week’s announce­ment from Anduril UK and GKN Aero­space high­light­ed the com­pa­nies’ joint work in sup­port of the British Army’s Project NYX and the Min­istry of Defence’s Land Autonomous Col­lab­o­ra­tive Plat­form pro­gramme. It will also involve explo­ration of oth­er oppor­tu­ni­ties at GKN Aerospace’s Isle of Wight air­frame pro­duc­tion facil­i­ty.

GKN Aero­space will be work­ing along­side Archer and Anduril, with Archer con­tribut­ing its lat­est advance­ments in eVTOL air­craft devel­op­ment and hybrid propul­sion to meet the British Army’s oper­a­tional require­ments.

Adam Gold­stein, Archer’s founder and CEO, said: “The UK has the tal­ent and indus­tri­al base to be a major play­er in dri­ving the next era of advanced aero­space and defence. Archer’s plans to open a UK engi­neer­ing hub under­scores our com­mit­ment to being an inte­gral part of the next-gen­er­a­tion of aero­space and defence in the coun­try.

“Bring­ing a leader of Limhi’s cal­iber onto the team is crit­i­cal as we look to con­tin­ue to accel­er­ate the devel­op­ment of our hybrid propul­sion, dual-use air­craft.”

Addi­tion­al­ly, Archer has con­firmed Dr. Limhi Somerville will be join­ing the com­pa­ny in ear­ly 2026 from Ver­ti­cal Aero­space, where he spent the last six years and most recent­ly led the company’s engi­neer­ing pro­gram. Pri­or to join­ing Ver­ti­cal Aero­space, Somerville held engi­neer­ing and research roles at Jaguar Land Rover and the Uni­ver­si­ty of War­wick. 

Dr. Somerville added: “Archer is pair­ing real­is­tic inno­va­tion with the cap­i­tal, man­u­fac­tur­ing capa­bil­i­ties, and strate­gic part­ner­ships required to actu­al­ly deliv­er next-gen­er­a­tion aero­space and defence tech­nolo­gies at scale. The oppor­tu­ni­ty to sup­port the devel­op­ment of their dual-use ver­ti­cal lift plat­form is com­pelling. I’m excit­ed to get to work.”

This expan­sion builds on recent remarks by the UK’s Min­is­ter for Defence Pro­cure­ment and Indus­try high­light­ing the defence sector’s role in dri­ving long-term eco­nom­ic growth. Work­ing along­side Anduril UK and GKN, Archer plans to invest in local engi­neer­ing tal­ent, cre­at­ing high skill roles aligned with the UK’s defence pri­or­i­ties.