CAAT’s Annual Report draws together information and data on UK arms exports from a variety of sources to present an overall picture of the UK arms trade in 2023, and trends over the past 10 years. The report includes data on export licences, export contracts secured by UK arms companies, and SIPRI data on deliveries from the UK of major conventional weapons, among others. The report presents, evaluates and discusses the data from each of these sources, and explores the overall picture they provide. Given the lack of transparency in the global arms trade, where each source provides only partial information, this approach allows for a much more comprehensive view.
Overall, the different sources give an ambiguous picture of the trend in UK arms exports, with some showing increases and others decreases. However, arms exports remain at a generally high level by historic standards, except in relation to complete systems such as aircraft and warships, as measured by SIPRI. A large proportion of the value of UK arms exports rather consists of components, subsystems, and military services such as the ongoing maintenance of the Saudi Air Force by BAE Systems, for which they receive over £2.5 billion a year, even without major new equipment deliveries.
One trend that is very clear is a huge increase in arms sales to Europe, reflecting a trend to European rearmament which began before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but which has accelerated since. Conversely, the share of UK arms exports to customers in the Middle East, traditionally the main recipient region, has decreased significantly. However, with potential new major orders from Qatar and Turkey, this may be a temporary lull.
Download the Executive Summary.
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