BAE Systems is one of the world’s largest arms producers, with 2024 sales of UK£ 28.3 billion. BAE Systems was formed in 1999 from a merger of Marconi Electric Systems, the defence arm of General Electric, and British Aerospace Plc, a British aerospace company formed in 1977.
Since its founding, it has become one of the best known and most globally present arms companies in the world, with a portfolio spanning aircraft combat aircraft, warships, tanks, armoured vehicles, artillery, missiles, small arms ammunition, cyber and intelligence products, and nuclear missile submarines; it also has several recent contracts for space reconnaissance.
The company is headquartered in the UK and has 107,400 employees across 40 countries, 80% of which are in the UK and US. Its sales are dominated by three markets: the US, which accounted for 44% of sales in 2024, the UK (26%), and Saudi Arabia (10%). It also has a significant self-funded research and development budget that reached UK£ 357 million in 2024 and focused on key technology areas including electronic warfare, autonomy, laser-guided weapons, unmanned aerial systems, synthetic training, electrification applications and space solutions.
Tomás Del Coro, CC BY-SA 2.0
Fighter jets
It is engaged in several joint ventures with other leading arms manufacturers to produce some of the world’s best-known aircraft. In 2022, BAE launched the Global Combat Air Programme (GCAP) with partner companies Leonardo and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. The programme aims to develop “next generation fighter aircraft.”
BAE owns a 33% share of the Eurofighter Typhoon combat aircraft programme, alongside Airbus and Leonardo. Typhoon aircraft have been widely used and ordered by air forces including: the UK (in Libya, Syria and Iraq), Egypt, Germany, Italy, Spain, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey. BAE are one of the main producers of the Eurofighter. The jets were assembled in its Warton, Lancashire facility until production halted in 2025, following a lull in orders and pending a decision by the Turkish government as to whether to order more of the jets.
BAE Systems is also involved in the supply chain of the Lockheed Martin F-35 fighter jets. In 2025, 15% of the value of every F-35 fighter jet was made in the UK, according to the UK Ministry of Defence. BAE also owns a 37.5% stake in MBDA Systems, a dominant missile manufacturer producing 45 land, sea and air weapon systems currently deployed in 90 armed forces around the world. Airbus and Leonardo also own shares in MBDA. In 2019, Rheinmetall acquired 55% of BAE’s combat vehicles business and the two companies established the Rheinmetall BAE Systems Land joint venture.
In July 2025, the Turkish government signed a memorandum of understanding with BAE Systems to purchase Typhoon fighter jets. BAE’s Typhoon aircraft are heavily used by Germany, Italy Spain and the UK, in 80% of operational missions by the four countries, BAE reports. The jets have also been ordered from BAE by Oman (in 2017), and Qatar (in 2022). Other national militaries have acquired Eurofighter jets, notably Kuwait and Austria, via other companies in the Eurofighter consortium. All four partner companies including BAE are involved in producing the crafts.
Warships and marine craft
BAE Systems also produces marine craft for navies globally largely out of the company’s subsidiary, BAE Systems Submarines, based in Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria. BAE benefitted from a UK£ 2.5 billion investment by the UK Ministry of Defence into developing nuclear submarines in 2018. The company has built, integrated and commissioned every submarine currently in service and under development with the Royal Navy. These include the Astute class of attack submarines and the Dreadnought class of nuclear-armed submarines. The Dreadnought class will be capable of launching Trident 2 D5 missiles when completed; their development will cost UK£ 31 billion.
In 2024, the Australian Government selected BAE Systems and Australian shipbuilder ASC Pty Ltd to build a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines for the Australian navy.
Other notable contracts
In June 2025, the US Space Systems Command awarded US$1.2 bilion to BAE Systems to provide missile tracking satellite capabilities to the US Space Force (USSF). In 2023, the UK Ministry of Defence awarded BAE Systems a UK£89 million contract to lead a 5-year consortium to develop ‘Trinity’, a multi-domain Wide Area Network data-sharing platform that would connect assets across the Uks armed forces. In 2021, BAE Systems has been awarded a six-year contract to deliver support and training to a new joint UK-Qatar Hawk squadron based at RAF Leeming, UK.
Controversies
Saudi Arabia and Yemen
Outside of the UK and US, BAE Systems longest standing and most significant client relationship with a national government is with Saudi Arabia. The relationship has withstood international investigations into one of the biggest corruption scandals in the history of the arms trade, the al-Yamamah contract, which included allegations that BAE Systems had paid large bribes to the Saudi royal family to secure a series of significant arms deals. CAAT calculates that since 2015, BAE has made revenues of UK£ 29 billion from the Saudi Ministry of Defence.
CAAT provides a further profile of BAE’s more about BAE’s partnership with Saudi Arabian regime.
More recently, BAE’s Typhoon and Tornado aircraft have been central to Saudi Arabia’s devastating attacks on Yemen – attacks that have killed thousands and created a humanitarian disaster. BAE Systems has sold UK £17.6-billion worth of aircraft, weapons and services to the Saudi military since the start of the Yemen campaign 2015, according to an investigation by Declassified UK.
BAE has 6,300 staff in Saudi Arabia to support the operational capabilities of the Saudi armed forces. In 2016, during the attacks on Yemen, the company stated that “the Group’s extensive in-Kingdom training and support activities are at a high tempo. The Royal Saudi Air Force has achieved high utilisation and aircraft availability across its Typhoon and Tornado fleets, operating under demanding conditions.”
In December 2019, a coalition of human rights groups led by the European Centre for Constitutional and Human Rights and including CAAT submitted a complaint to the International Criminal Court in The Hague asking for an investigation into whether senior arms company executives and government officials may be responsible for aiding and abetting war crimes in Yemen. The complaint listed BAE Systems, Leonardo, Airbus, Dassault, Raytheon UK, RWM Italia, MBDA, and Thales. As of 2025, the coalition was still awaiting a response from the ICC Prosecutor’s office.
Nevertheless, BAE Systems continues to do good business in Saudia Arabia. In March 2025, the US military approved a first sale of an Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System worth approximately US$ 100 million to the country’s military. Read more about BAE’s partnership with Saudi Arabian regime.
Israel and the Palestinian territories
BAE Systems has attracted significant scrutiny of its business with the Israeli Defence Forces, particularly following the 7 October 2023 assault by Hamas and Israeli bombing and siege campaign in Gaza.
F-35 fighter jets are used by the Israel Defense Forces in its Gaza campaign. In 2025, 15% of the value of every F-35 fighter jet was made in the UK, according to the UK Ministry of Defence, with BAE Systems is the biggest UK company in F-35 fighter jet programme. In 2025, the UK High Court ruled rejected a legal case brought by campaign to stop the transfer of F-35 parts to Israel.
Other weapons produced by BAE Systems which are reported to be used in Gaza include the M109 Self-Propelled Howitzer (SPH), which Amnesty International has linked to white phosphorus attacks against civiians and various artillery shells and explosives.
Immigration control
In April 2025, researchers from the Universities of Liverpool, York, Sheffield and Nottingham published a report calculating that between 2018 and 2028, BAE Systems had at least three contracts relating to digital border security infrastructure in the Mediterranean. BAE Systems did not respond to the Business and Human Rights Centre’s initiative to follow up the researchers’ complaint.
Corruption and political influence
BAE Systems has been embroiled in several corruption scandals.
The most notable of these is the al-Yamamah contract with Saudi Arabia. This scandal included allegations that BAE Systems had paid large bribes to the Saudi royal family to secure a series of significant arms deals worth over UK£ 40 million in the 1980s, elements of which had remained hidden from scrutiny until the discovery in 2025 of a 1992 National Audit Office report into the scandal in a public archive.
In 2001, BAE agreed to supply the Tanzanian government with ‘overpriced’ ‘Watchman’ airspace radar monitoring systems. Despite opposition within the UK cabinet, the export was approved with the support of then-UK Prime Minister Tony Blair. BAE was subsequently found to have payed millions of pounds, likely bribes for officials, to an agent to secure the deal. BAE Systems is also alleged to have been involved in corrupt practices related to a 1997 fighter aircraft contract with the South African government and a 2000 contract with the Czech government, among others.
As a primarily British company, BAE Systems is heavily engaged in political lobbying in the UK. CAAT found that between 2012 and 2023, BAE had held more meetings with UK prime ministers than any other private company.
Questions have been raised about the relationship between BAE and UK politicians. In 2018, BAE met the UK’s then-Trade Secretary Liam Fox to discuss UK-Saudi relations weeks after the murder by Saudi officials of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a prominent critic of Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen. Declassified UK has also reported that several British Conservative party MP’s who rejected a parliamentary motion calling for a ceasefire in Gaza have owned BAE shares.
A 2024 investigation by Declassified into UK Peers’ relationships to arms companies identified five members of the House of Lords with financial interests in BAE Systems. In August 2025, UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy was facing possible legal action over a plan to invite staff from BAE Systems to work inside the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, an appointment alleged to be “ a conflict of interest” and creating the potential for “improper influence,” according to a pre-action letter seen by the Guardian.
BAE is also a significant political donor in the US through its BAE Systems USA Political Action Committee (PAC). In 2023, the company spent US$ 4.1 million on political lobbying in the US.
Campaign and protest actions
BAE Systems is a frequent target of legal, campaigning and regulatory actions.
Since 2000, BAE Systems group companies have accrued penalties totalling US$ 548 million in the US alone related to over dozens of offences, ranging from export control violations to employment offences, to violations of the Foreign and Corrupt Practices act.
BAE sites are frequently targetted for physical protests. In November 2023, unionised workers blocked a UK BAE Systems site in Kent, claiming that factory was supplying equipment used in Israel’s Gaza bombing campaign. Protestors blocked the entrance to BAE Samlesbury in Lancashire, where the rear fuselage of the global fleet of F-35s is made, in December 2023, February 2025, and August 2025.
CAAT has been a vocal critic of BAE Systems for decades and has been targeted for counter-surveillance by BAE System’s predecessor company, British Aerospace.
