Written evidence submitted by AERALIS Ltd (SSF0014)
Who we are
AERALIS is a British company developing a new generation of British-designed and British-built light jet military aircraft. The programme has been structured to deliver UK design authority, industrial SME participation across the UK, and long-term export potential, with the aim of creating a platform that supports enduring industrial activity, skills growth, and sovereign capability.
The aircraft is being designed using modern digital engineering, modular design and open systems architecture, making it adaptable across multiple defence and training roles, enhancing interoperability and future capability options. Crucially, the programme is being developed through private capital investment, at no cost to the UK taxpayer, demonstrating an affordable and sustainable model for defence innovation and industrial growth.
AERALIS has planned final assembly and associated engineering activity in the Ayrshire region, centred on Glasgow Prestwick Airport. This location builds on an established aerospace cluster, a highly experienced industry workforce, and a strong local education and training base, offering a clear example of how British-designed defence programmes can align with existing regional strengths to deliver long-term economic and skills benefits.
Our evidence addresses how increased UK defence spending can be converted into sustained economic, industrial, and skills benefit for Scotland, with particular relevance to future decisions in the Air domain.
Question 1 - How can Scotland benefit from increased UK defence spending?
Increased UK defence spending delivers the greatest and most durable benefit to Scotland where it is directed toward programmes that are British-designed, British-owned, and structured for long-term delivery. Without this foundation, higher defence spending risks flowing overseas through imported platforms, delivering limited and short-lived industrial activity in the UK.
A decisive factor is British design authority. Ownership of the design ensures retention of long-term high value work associated with a platform, including development, certification, digital engineering, systems integration and upgrades. This is the work that sustains highly skilled employment, supports apprenticeships and graduate entry, and anchors industrial capability over decades.
Where the UK imports a foreign design, Scotland and the wider UK are largely excluded from this long-term value. Industrial participation is typically confined to limited assembly or support tasks, with no control over future development and no independent export rights. Such activity does not create sustained demand for advanced engineering or digital skills, nor does it provide the programme visibility required for regional supply chains, colleges and training providers to invest with confidence.
By contrast, where programmes begin with British design, Scotland is well positioned to secure enduring economic and skills benefit. Long-term platform programmes create a stable demand signal for education providers, employers and SMEs. This is particularly important for future-facing capabilities such as digital engineering, certification, modular open systems architectures and advanced manufacturing, all of which are central to modern defence delivery.
The AERALIS programme illustrates this model in practice. As a UK-designed aircraft with final assembly and engineering activity planned at Prestwick, it brings long-term development, manufacturing, and certification work into an established aerospace environment.
Increased defence spending benefits Scotland most when it is invested in British design-led domestic programmes that provide long-term visibility, sustain high-value employment, and create a continuous demand for advanced and digital skills.
Question 3 - What role should Scotland’s Defence Growth Deal and the Defence Industrial Strategy play in creating and sustaining high-quality jobs in Scotland?
The Defence Industrial Strategy and Scotland’s Defence Growth Deal are key policy levers in determining whether increased defence spending translates into sustained high-quality employment and skills development, rather than episodic or transactional activity.
Their role is not to maximise short-term industrial participation, but to shape future platform choices and programme structures so that long-term value remains in the UK and is deliberately aligned with regional industrial strengths. Experience across defence shows that credible skills pipelines depend on multi-decade programmes that provide confidence for employers, education providers, and students to invest in specialist capability.
This model is well established in the naval and land domains, where British-designed platforms have underpinned generational industrial activity and skills development. In contrast, the Air domain has often relied on imported or minority-share programmes where much of the design, digital engineering, and systems integration activity sits overseas. In these cases, the UK has borne the cost while exporting much of the long-term skills and industrial benefit.
For Scotland, the impact of this approach is maximised when programmes are aligned with regions that have the industrial and skills base to support them. Ayrshire and the Prestwick area offer a long-standing aerospace cluster, experienced regulated-industry workforce, and an established education and training network. Aligning British-designed air programmes with this environment enables defence spending to reinforce existing capability and grow future skills locally rather than displacing them.
The AERALIS programme has deliberately embedded early partnership-building as part of delivery. This includes:
These partnerships reflect AERALIS’s approach to bringing together industry, unions, local government, and education so that the foundations, ways of working, and delivery culture are established from the outset.
Within this broader context, the Defence Growth Deal and Defence Industrial Strategy should support:
This approach strengthens Scotland’s ability to convert increased defence expenditure into lasting employment, advanced skills, and resilient industrial capability.
Recommendation
We recommend that the Committee urge the Government that, if increased defence spending and the Defence Growth Deal are to deliver sustained economic and skills benefits in Scotland, future platform decisions, particularly in the Air domain, should prioritise British-designed and British-developed programmes and align their delivery with established regional industrial and skills ecosystems such as those in and around Prestwick.
December 2025