The British government has agreed to underwrite the “New Medium Helicopter” (NMH) programme with roughly £1 billion of funding to procure between 23 and 44 aircraft, a move designed to prevent the closure of Leonardo Helicopters’ ageing Yeovil plant. Leonardo will offer its AW149 under the NMH umbrella and has committed that the principal manufacturing work will remain in the UK, a central plank in ministers’ argument for the deal.
The contract ends months of uncertainty after Leonardo warned early in the year that the Yeovil facility would shut without a UK order by March. Company leadership said the plant — with an 80‑year history and about 3,300 helicopters produced — could not be sustained after more than a decade without domestic contracts, and unions warned that thousands of jobs in the town and the wider supply chain could vanish.
Employment and regional politics appear to have been decisive. Ministers faced intense pressure from unions and local communities to preserve an industrial capability that supports an estimated 3,300 direct roles and as many as 10,000 positions in the helicopter supply chain. Leonardo has pledged to train engineers and technicians in Britain and to use the Yeovil facility as a base for winning further export orders across Europe.
For the British armed forces, the NMH is a practical replacement for several ageing types: the RAF’s Puma HC.2, the Bell 212, the Griffin HAR2 and the AS365‑N3. The AW149 is a proven medium‑lift design already in service with the Egyptian Navy, the Royal Thai Army and Poland’s land forces. It has a maximum take‑off weight of about 8.6 tonnes, carries two crew and up to 16 troops or roughly 3.8 tonnes of payload, and can be armed and equipped for night operations.
The deal’s political difficulty was simple: domestic production costs significantly more than buying off‑the‑shelf from abroad. Successive chancellors balked at absorbing higher procurement and lifecycle bills for an indigenously produced helicopter, arguing that purchasing foreign systems or co‑producing with partners was cheaper. Past bespoke UK programmes, including a home‑built Apache variant, struggled with supply‑chain and maintenance frictions — a cautionary example that weighed on decision‑makers.
Still, ministers concluded that preserving sovereign capability and regional employment outweighed short‑term savings. The choice dovetails with a broader reorientation toward European defence partners after tensions with US suppliers over pricing and contractual terms. The compromise leaves Britain exposed to higher upfront costs and the risk of future sustainment bills, but it secures a remaining centre of rotorcraft expertise that ministers hope can be leveraged into exports and future co‑production work.