Northrop Grumman is the third largest arms company in the world, according to SIPRI. The company is headquartered in Virginia, in the US, and was founded as a merger of the aircraft designer and manufacturer Northrop Aircraft Incorporated and the aircraft systems integrator Grumman Corporation in 1994. It has since acquired dozens of smaller companies to become one of the world’s leading arms companies.
In 2024, the company’s activities were divided into four business segments: Aeronautics Systems, Defense Systems, Mission Systems and Space Systems. The company made US$ 37.8 billion in arms revenues in 2024, which accounted for about 92% of the company’s total revenues. Its largest client by far is the US military; sales to the American government accounted for 87 percent of 2024 sales. That year, Northrop Grumman and four other companies claimed the vast bulk of Department of Defense contracts. Outside of the US, the company has customers in 25 countries and offices in Australia, Japan, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, the UAE, and the UK. It employs 100,000 personnel globally across 550 locations.
Northrop Grumman in the UK
Northrop Grumman employs about 5,000 personnel in the UK across 10 sites, with its UK headquarters in London and a significant site in Cheltenham, not far from the GCHQ headquarters. It has a half dozen UK subsidiaries, notably Northrop Grumman UK Limited, which posted profits of UK£ 23.6 million in 2024. Northrop Grumman in the UK has acquired licences for export to 59 countries, among them the US, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.
The UK Ministry of Defence is a major Northrop Grumman client. It has acquired, for example, the company’s Integrated Battle Command System (IBCS), Bushmaster, GATOR ground surveillance system, and C5ISR (Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Cyber, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance) systems.
Aircraft
Within its Aeronautics Systems business segment, Northrop Grumman produces strategic long-range strike aircraft; tactical fighter and air dominance aircraft; airborne battle management and command and control systems; and unmanned autonomous aircraft systems, including high-altitude long-endurance (HALE) strategic intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) systems.
Northrop Grumman’s aircraft portfolio includes some of the best-known fighter aircraft, most of which are used extensively by the US Air Force. The company makes the entire centre and aft fuselage sections and vertical tails of the F/A-18 E/F Super Hornet; the centre fuselage, AN/APG-81 AESA radar, and communications subsystems on the F-35 Lightning II; and most of the B-2 Stealth Bomber. The US used extensively the latter in its campaigns in Serbia, Libya, Iraq and Afghanistan. Other craft to which Northop Grumman contributes parts include the: Airborne Laser Mine Detection System (ALMDS), B-21 Raider, Blended Wing Body Aircraft, C-2A Greyhound, E-2C Hawkeye 2000, E-2D Advanced Hawkeye, E-8C Joint STARS, E-130J TACAMO, F-5 Tiger Fighter Jet, T-38 Talon, and Apache helicopter.
Northrop Grumman and Boeing were in competition in late 2025 to lead development for a replacement for the F/A-18 E/F Super Hornet by the 2030s under the US Navy’s F/A-XX programme. The company also provides weapons systems to the Boeing EA-18G Growler, which is based on the FA-18 Super Hornet; these were used by US forces in the 2026 US-backed coup in Venezuela, Janes reports. Further afield, Northrop Grumman recently updated the electronic warfare suites of Turkey’s F-16 fighter jet fleet.
Drones
Northrop Grumman produces a range of drones. These include the RQ-4D Phoenix high-altitude long-endurance (HALE) drone, the Lumberjack loitering one-way attack drone, MQ-4C Triton, Global Hawk, Fire Scout, NATO Alliance Ground Surveillance (AGS), Bat Unmanned Air System, Manta Ray, AQS-24B/C Minehunting System and X-47B UCAS.
A selection of Northrop Grumman’s recent drones work includes the following. In 2021, The company was providing in-country support for Japan’s RQ-4 Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) programme. In 2022, US Global Hawks were deployed to monitor eastern Ukraine; Phoenix drones in the service of NATO have also been used to monitor the Finnish-Russian border. MQ-4C Triton unmanned aerial vehicles are extensively used by the US Navy, and as of 2025, the Australian Air Force. In 2023, Janes reported that the company was working with Korean arms firm KAI to develop a new vertical takeoff and landing drone. In 2025, Northrop Grumman revealed that it was working on a new autonomous combat drone known as Project Talon, which it unveiled in November.
Missiles and defense systems
Within its Defense Systems business segment, Northrop Grumman produces: strategic missiles; integrated, all-domain command and control (C2) systems; precision strike weapons; advanced propulsion, including tactical solid rocket motors and high speed air-breathing and hypersonic systems; high-performance gun systems, ammunition, precision munitions and advanced fuzes; and aircraft and mission systems logistics support, sustainment, operations and modernization.
The company has long been active in the provision of nuclear missiles. It claimed that it has been “involved in every United States ground based ballistic missile program since 1955.” Northrop Grumman was the lead contractor of the US Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) programme until re-organisation in 2013. In 2019, Northrop Grumman received a contract under the US Air Force’s Ground Based Strategic Deterrent programme to replace the ICBM system in partnership with the US Air Force with the Sentinel ICBM, in a US$ 63 billion 20-year program.
Further afar, Poland’s WISŁA medium-range air defense system is based on Northrop Grumman’s Integrated Battle Command System (IBCS) missile defence system; it also supplies the country with missiles and MK44 Stretch cannons for its battle tanks. The company’s Forward Area Air Defense Command and Control (FAAD C2) system is used in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, allowing for interoperability amongst with NATO and US forces in the region. Northrop Grumman will also co-produce ammunition in Lithuania with a local company, according to a 2025 agreement.
Northrop Grumman’s missile defence customers include Qatar. In 2022, the US State Department agreed that Qatar could purchase 10 defensive drone systems, 200 interceptors and related equipment, with Northrup Grumman and Raytheon as the primary contractors.
Mission systems
Within Mission Systems, its major products include: command, control, communications and computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (C4ISR) systems; radar, electro- optical/infrared (EO/IR) and acoustic sensors; electronic warfare systems; advanced communications and network systems; advanced microelectronics; navigation and positioning sensors; maritime power, propulsion and payload launch systems; full spectrum cyber solutions; and intelligence processing systems. In 2025, it signed an MOU to provide Romania with the Ground/Air Task-Oriented Radar (G/ATOR) mobile radar surveillance system.
Controversies
Saudi Arabia and the Middle East
Northrop Grumman states that it has “been heavily involved in the training and development of the Saudi military personnel”, and “has continued to grow its presence and expand the support it offers to customers, industry partners and universities in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and other Middle East countries for more than 45 years.” Part of its activities in Saudi Arabia are conducted through a joint venture in the Kingdom, employing 1,800 people. The company has wide-ranging partnerships with Saudi industry and universities.
The company provides Longbow Fire Control Radars for the Saudi AH-64 Apache Attack Helicopter fleet and is a subcontractor for the UAE Air Force’s F-16 Block 60 Desert Falcon. Both crafts have been used extensively in Saudi Arabia’s devastating attacks on Yemen – attacks that have killed thousands and created a humanitarian disaster.
Israel and the Palestinian territories
As a major American arms supplier, Northrop Grumman’s products and technologies have been extensively used by the Israel Defense Force. Northrop Grumman’s UK companies support the production of the F-35 fighter jet. F-35s are widely used globally, including by Israel in Gaza. Every F-35 is assembled with contributions from a range of military aviation companies globally through the F-35 stealth combat aircraft programme, notably Lockheed Martin, Leonardo, and BAE Systems. UK industry makes 15% of every the F-35 fighter jet; CAAT has calculated the value of UK components in Israel’s F-35s to be well over UK£ 500m.
The IDF also uses various of the other fighter jets profiled above to which Northrop Grumman contributes weapons systems. These include the F-16 fighter jet and Apache helicopter, for which it contributes the AN/APG-78 Longbow fire-control radar system. In 2024, a group of UN Experts criticised the ongoing supply of arms to Israel including from Northrop Grumman. In November 2025, CAAT led a protest at Northrop Grumman’s site at its London site.
Biometric surveillance and border surveillance
Northrop Grumman produces biometric surveillance technologies; these have been deployed by various US agencies to heavy criticism.
In 2029, the US Department of Homeland Security was working on the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) enormous biometric program that would collect biometric identifiers including face and voice data, DNA, scars, and tattoos of citizens and non-citizens. This Homeland Advanced Recognition Technology (HART) would replace the Automated Biometric Identification System (IDENT), and while not operational yet (in 2024), campaigners have warned of overreach, bias and invasion of privacy rights. Northrop Grumman was awarded a DHS contract in September 2017, DHS awarded a contract to develop the first two increments of HART, reports the Immigrant Defense Project.
In 2019, the Transnational Institute published that Northrop Grumman had received US$ 340 million in Customs and Boder Protection agency contracts, and a further US$ 11 billion Coast Guard (2002) and US$ 12 million Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) IT services contract (2009).
Political Influence
Northrop Grumman is a major donor to political campaigns in the US. The company spent US$ 6.81 million on lobbying activities in 2025, according to OpenSecrets, frequently lobbying on legislation to do with defence budgets. During the 115th Congress (2017–2018), Northrop Grumman contributed US$ 866,194 to members of the US House of Representatives Appropriations Committee.
In the UK, Northrop Grumman is a major funder of arms- and defence-related All Party Parliamentary Groups, Action on Armed Violence reports. In 2024, the UK Labour party was criticised for accepting Northrop Grumman’s sponsorship of its 2024 party conference.
Corruption allegations
In 1993, a company group later acquired by Northrop Grumman, Litton Industries, agreed to pay fines to resolve corruption allegations involving the taking of illicit payments by one of its agents to facilitate arms contracts in Greece and Taiwan.
