From Manchester, Plymouth, and Bristol, Thales has a strong presence across England. We find and pride ourselves on being a crucial part of the country’s supply chain, driving innovation, sustaining jobs, and adding significant economic value to the country’s businesses, organisations and government.
Our work across England is powered by the drive and ideas of over 7,000 employees, bringing innovation to the equipment and systems in use from the bottom of our oceans to the outer reaches of space. The people we rely on to keep the country running, in turn, rely on Thales to design, maintain, manufacture and advance the systems they use every day.
This is our impact. Read on to discover more about the work we do across the regions of the country.
Spearheading innovation across the South East
The South East is a key region for Thales in the UK, with 2,370 employees located across two key sites in Crawley and Reading. Thales provides a major contribution to the South East economy, generating £460m in GDP and supporting approximately 6,300 jobs.
Our flagship site in Crawley is Thales’s largest site in the UK, from which Thales has delivered equipment and services to the Ministry of Defence since 1964.
The workplace is home to many key capabilities, including the British Army’s Watchkeeper Unmanned Air System, Electronic Warfare for the Royal Navy, military training and simulation including the European A400M transport aircraft, Counter-IED protection, civil aerospace connectivity and secure military communications. This reflects our long and varied heritage in surveillance and mission planning as well as military avionics and training solutions.
Our focus on innovation is also supported by the presence of Thales Research and Technology UK (TRT-UK), which forms part of a global network of advanced research centres. TRT UK develops cutting-edge solutions for a wide range of customers, with a specific research focus on sensing, data fusion and analysis; advanced networking and communications; autonomy and complex systems.
Thales’s commitment to supporting innovation in the South East has been further enhanced through a strategic partnership with the University of Southampton, which focuses on advancing capabilities within maritime autonomy. We have a longstanding relationship with the University, which we look forward to deepening through this partnership.
A driving force for innovation in the maritime sector
Thales in the South West employs over 1100 people across two key sites in Bristol and Templecombe. Currently, there are over 40 graduates and apprentices working in a range of roles from engineering to business management across these sites.
Templecombe
Templecombe is our primary site in the South West and is one of the main strategic sites for Thales in the UK. Established in the late 1960s, Thales in Templecombe is now home to our Maritime and Air Operations businesses. There are over 750 highly skilled employees on site working together to invent, develop and deliver world-leading technology to our customers around the world. With Thales’s investment, the site has now become a global centre of excellence in anti-submarine warfare, mine warfare and submarine technology.
Bristol
Our site in Bristol represents both the site of one of our most significant achievements of recent times as well as setting the course for our future. At our site in Bristol, Thales designed the Queen Elizabeth class carriers, the largest and most powerful vessels ever constructed for the Royal Navy, and we are proud to be founding members of the Aircraft Carrier Alliance. Thales is providing the communications systems on board the carriers and our sensors, systems and capabilities will help them carry out the demands of operational life at sea for many years to come.
Bristol is also home to the main design development capability for Thales Alenia Space in the UK, a leading actor in the design of satellite propulsion systems, satellite subsystems and system design studies.
Through our partnership with the University of Bristol, the South West is also home to Thales’s first strategic partnership with a UK university. Thales has a long-standing relationship with Bristol University and has now formalised that with a strategic partnership with the University’s Departments of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Computer Science and the Systems Engineering Centre. We look forward to our ongoing success with Bristol and hope to replicate this partnership at other universities across the UK.
Maritime Autonomy Centre at Turnchapel Wharf
Our newly opened Maritime Autonomy Centre at Turnchapel Wharf in Plymouth represents Thales’s commitment to our future in the South West as a place where we can invest in digitally transformative maritime technologies.
The facility will act as the key maritime integration, test and evaluation centre for the combined United Kingdom and French Maritime Mine Counter Measures (MMCM) Programme.
The site will also create a space where SMEs, academia and customers can develop and innovate together. It will also support STEM activity in the South West with both schools and Universities being able to take advantage of the site’s world-class facilities.
Supporting jobs in our supply chain
The North West is the region with the largest concentration of Thales supply chain jobs in the UK, with 1600 in total. Our Cheadle site in Greater Manchester has over 600 employees on the site and has been part of our business since 1977. It is a centre of excellence for software design and development with teams working on emerging technologies including artificial intelligence.
Our maritime business specialises in sonar systems for submarines, surface warships, and aircraft as well as communications masts and systems for submarines. We also have a large team working for our UK transportation business. Thales’s tram management system will enable Greater Manchester’s Metrolink project to take five million car journeys off local roads every year and increase the number of trips passengers make on the network each day from 55,000 to over 90,000.
In order to support our growth, we are starting an investment programme that will result in a more modern, vibrant work environment for our employees – both current and new.