BAE Systems

BAE Systems

BAE Systems is a UK-based defence contractor with major operations in the UK, US, Australia and Sweden. It designs and builds combat aircraft, warships and submarines, armoured vehicles, munitions and electronic warfare systems for governments across NATO and allied nations. The company employs around 110,000 people.

Key Products

• GCAP / Tempest — BAE leads the UK share of the Global Combat Air Programme, the sixth-generation fighter being developed with Italy and Japan and targeted for service entry around 2035. Design and development now sits with Edgewing, the joint venture BAE formed with its Italian and Japanese partners. The UK aircraft is called Tempest; its design was revealed in July 2025, and BAE is building a Flying Combat Air Demonstrator to prove the technologies ahead of it.
• Eurofighter Typhoon — BAE is a core Eurofighter partner and continues to build and upgrade Typhoons for the UK, Saudi, German, Spanish and other air forces. BAE says the 2025 UK Typhoon order sustains around 20,000 UK jobs.
• Uncrewed air systems — BAE has developed a series of experimental platforms, including Magma and Replica, aimed at the loyal wingman role alongside crewed aircraft.
• M777 howitzer — a 155 mm towed artillery system used by US, UK, Ukrainian and other forces.

Business and financial position

BAE Systems is listed on the London Stock Exchange under the ticker BA. For full-year 2025 it reported sales of £30,662 million, up 10 percent, revenue on an IFRS basis of £28,336 million, up 8 percent, and underlying EBIT of £3,322 million, up 12 percent. Order intake was £36.8 billion and the order backlog closed the year at £83.6 billion, £5.8 billion higher than a year earlier.

The first half of 2026 continued that run: sales of £15,772 million, up 9 percent; underlying EBIT of £1,701 million, up 11 percent; underlying earnings per share of 38.9p, up 13 percent; free cash flow of £1,791 million; order intake of £16.4 billion; and a record £84.0 billion backlog. BAE raised its full-year 2026 sales growth guidance to 8 to 10 percent, from 7 to 9 percent.

Why it matters

BAE’s significance lies in its presence across every domain of Western defence procurement — air, sea, land and electronic warfare — and in a backlog that now covers roughly three years of sales, which makes its near-term revenue unusually visible. Leading the UK end of GCAP anchors it in European next-generation air combat.

In the uncrewed space specifically it is a slower mover than the pure-play drone companies, and FlightBrief’s read is that this is deliberate: BAE’s route into autonomy is through platform integration and electronic warfare on programmes it already owns, not through cheap attritable aircraft. That makes it a structural participant in any large-scale autonomous combat aircraft programme, and a poor comparison to the companies shipping thousands of small airframes today.