GKN Aerospace and Anduril UK Sign Partnership to Lead Country’s Future UAV Capabilities, Also joined by Archer And Its eVTOL Expertise

GKN Aero­space has announced a new strate­gic team­ing agree­ment with Anduril Indus­tries UK, to accel­er­ate the devel­op­ment of advanced UAV and rotor­craft tech­nolo­gies for UK defence pro­grammes.

The indus­tri­al part­ner­ship is ini­tial­ly tar­get­ing the UK Government’s upcom­ing Land Autonomous Col­lab­o­ra­tive Plat­form (ACP) con­tract and the British Army’s Project NYX, for a next-gen­er­a­tion uncrewed rotor­craft for the UK.

Under this lat­est col­lab­o­ra­tion, GKN Aero­space will lead struc­tur­al design and inte­gra­tion work, draw­ing on its world-class exper­tise in aerostruc­tures, elec­tri­cal wiring inter­con­nec­tion sys­tems (EWIS) and aero­space engi­neer­ing.

Dave Bond, Senior Vice Pres­i­dent of Defence Tech­nol­o­gy for GKN Aero­space said:“This is an excel­lent exam­ple of col­lab­o­ra­tion and aero­space inno­va­tion at its best. By com­bin­ing GKN Aerospace’s advanced man­u­fac­tur­ing and inte­gra­tion exper­tise with Anduril’s inno­v­a­tive defence tech­nolo­gies, we can offer an indus­try-lead­ing solu­tion for the UK Army in rapid time.

“Togeth­er, we will deliv­er a next-gen­er­a­tion UAV that meets the UK’s future oper­a­tional needs while cre­at­ing high-val­ue jobs and sus­tain­ing crit­i­cal skills in the UK.”

Much of the work would be deliv­ered from GKN Aero­space’s Cowes facil­i­ty on the Isle of Wight, tak­ing advan­tage of the com­pa­ny’s recent £10 mil­lion invest­ment in the site, with the lat­est clean­rooms, pro­cess­ing equip­ment and train­ing facil­i­ties ready to sup­port growth in excit­ing new plat­forms.

The part­ner­ship will tar­get key UK con­tracts expect­ed in ear­ly 2026, deliv­er­ing mod­ern capa­bil­i­ty while rein­forc­ing the UK’s sov­er­eign indus­tri­al base.

Rich Drake, Man­ag­ing Direc­tor, Anduril Indus­tries UK, said:“We are excit­ed to be work­ing with such an estab­lished and trust­ed part­ner in British man­u­fac­tur­ing. GKN Aero­space has long been a sig­nif­i­cant part of the UK’s indus­tri­al land­scape, and we’re proud to be part­ner­ing with them on lead­ing defence capa­bil­i­ties. With this, we will best placed to enhance the lethal­i­ty and sur­viv­abil­i­ty for our Armed Forces.”

GKN Aero­space already employs almost 1,000 at its Cowes facil­i­ty and if suc­cess­ful, over the com­ing three years, the col­lab­o­ra­tion is expect­ed to cre­ate more than 100 high­ly skilled roles at the Isle of Wight site, which is the largest pri­vate employ­er on the Island.

Along with GKN Aero­space and Anduril UK, the pair would be joined by Archer’s eVTOL air­craft exper­tise to deliv­er Project NYX.

In Decem­ber 2024, Archer announced an exclu­sive part­ner­ship with Anduril to joint­ly devel­op a hybrid VTOL air­craft for crit­i­cal defense appli­ca­tions, tar­get­ing a poten­tial pro­gram of record from the Unit­ed States Depart­ment of Defense (DOD).  

Adam Gold­stein, CEO and Founder of Archer, added: “Our con­tin­ued work in the Unit­ed King­dom reflects the strength of our part­ner­ship with Anduril and the speed at which our domes­tic sup­ply base is com­ing togeth­er.

“With Archer’s eVTOL and rotor­craft tech­nolo­gies, Anduril’s auton­o­my and GKN Aerospace’s indus­tri­al capa­bil­i­ty work­ing as one, we have a team that can deliv­er the next gen­er­a­tion of advanced avi­a­tion for the UK.”