Thales locks in 10-year deal to keep Royal Navy’s communication systems ‘up and running’

Defense Equipment & Support (DE&S) has awarded Thales UK a major contract to maintain the Royal Navy’s internal and external fleet communications and provide global support for the next ten years.

The Royal Navy’s fleet communications systems are being maintained to support combat capability. They are a critical component of a platform’s ability to operate and fight; any failure or degradation of these systems places ‘a significant risk’ on the Royal Navy’s ability to fulfill defense outcomes. 

According to Thales, the Maritime Communications Capability Support (MCCS) replaces the previous Fleetwide Communications contract, which Thales UK has overseen for the past seven years.

The company will also provide ‘waterfront’ office services, obsolescence recovery for aging equipment, and inventory management, ensuring spare part availability and ongoing defect repairs as required.

“…we have looked at outcomes from other successful defence programmes and applied the lessons learned from those, in particular cutting unnecessary red tape and bureaucracy allowing Thales much more freedom to get the job done,” Commodore Phil Game, Director of Sense, Decide & Communicate at DE&S, said.

“We estimate that the scope of this contract will save between £25m and £30m in through life costs to the Royal Navy over the 10-year support period by working in a much more collaborative way with Thales UK, underlining our ‘one defence’ philosophy.”

“This long-term fleetwide support framework reflects our unwavering commitment to ensuring the Royal Navy remains combat-ready and equipped with world-class communications capabilities, today and into the future,” Phil Siveter, CEO Thales in the UK, added.

To remind, in February 2024, Thales won a £1.8 billion, 15-year contract from the UK MOD to improve the Royal Navy’s ship availability and resilience.