Navantia UK opened Resurgent Hall at its Harland & Wolff shipyard in Belfast, Northern Ireland, on Monday, Nov. 2, adding 5,000 square meters of fabrication space for work on three Fleet Solid Support ships. The extension has new cranes, robotic plasma-cutting technology and a mechanized panel line.
The opening formalizes an upgrade already partly in use: Navantia said the hall extension was completed earlier this year and the panel line became operational in July. The company put investment across its UK facilities at more than £157 million, including over £90 million in Belfast; the Ministry of Defence (MoD) put the Belfast investment at about £100 million.
The MoD says the Belfast program is linked to more than 900 skilled positions and apprenticeship places, but has not said whether the figure counts current staff or a broader measure of jobs supported. Navantia reported a Belfast workforce of nearly 500, including 93 apprentices, in March.
The £1.63 billion contract covers three ships that will deliver supplies, including munitions and food, to Royal Navy vessels at sea. Modules are being built in Belfast, Appledore and Spain, with final assembly, integration and trials planned for Belfast.
Ministry of Defence spending with industry in Northern Ireland reached £464 million in 2025/26, up 63% in real terms. The MoD’s statistics say that increase was primarily due to reallocation of location data for the three Navantia contracts, a qualification to the headline spending rise.
The MoD says the ship program remains on schedule and within budget, with the vessels due into service in the early 2030s. Its latest major-projects data, however, rates delivery confidence as amber and cites supply-chain, staffing and crewing concerns that could slow entry into service.
