Strategic Defence Review 2025: Key points and paper series

The Strategic Defence Review – Making Britain safer: secure at home, strong abroad was published in June 2025.

Described as a “root and branch review of defence”, the SDR sets out a vision for UK defence over the next ten years.

Independently led by the former Defence Secretary and former NATO Secretary General, Lord Robertson, the government has endorsed the “vision and direction” of the review and accepted all 62 of its recommendations.

The vision for UK defence

To meet the challenges of a world that is “more serious and less predictable than at any time since the end of the Cold War”, and where “technology is changing how war is fought” the SDR represents what the Defence Secretary, John Healey, describes as a “landmark shift” in the UK’s approach to deterrence and defence.

The review calls for a transformation in the way that defence is organised and delivered and at its heart are three main premises:

• A move toward “warfighting readiness”. This requires technological innovation at “a wartime pace”, strengthened homeland defence, a new partnership with industry and radical reform of the way in which defence equipment is procured.
• A new, more lethal, Integrated Force model for the armed forces that utilises AI and autonomy alongside more conventional warfighting capabilities and puts “NATO first”. There will be no’ end state’ for the integrated force, with its design and capabilities continuing to “evolve as threats and technologies do”. The armed forces will be expected to be able to fight as part of NATO; deploy with a coalition of other countries either as a lead or a contributing partner; and operate alone, as an integrated, sovereign force.
• A “whole of society approach” to the review’s implementation, including wider participation in achieving national resilience and renewing the relationship between the armed forces and society.

SDR recommendations

The SDR makes 62 recommendations for transforming defence over the next decade. Those recommendations are premised on the government’s commitment to reach 3% of GDP on defence spending in the next Parliament, when fiscal and economic conditions allow. However, the SDR is also clear that, with additional resources, or if circumstances change, the transformation of defence could be accelerated faster than the ten-year timescale currently envisaged.

The government’s commitments

The government has said that it endorses, and will implement, all the recommendations made in the SDR.

In addition to the programme of defence reform that is currently underway, and the commitments to defence spending that have been announced, including a £11 billion annual equipment budget, in his foreword to the SDR, the Defence Secretary John Healey also set out a number of immediate actions that the government intended to take. Among them were:

• £15 billion investment in the current Parliament (to 2029) in the sovereign warhead programme for the UK’s nuclear deterrent.
• Up to £1 billion in new funding for homeland air and missile defence and the creation of a new Cyber and Electromagnetic (CyberEM) Command to defend the UK.
• £6 billion investment in the current Parliament in munitions, including £1.5 billion in an ‘always on’ pipeline for munitions and the construction of at least six new energetics and munitions factories in the UK.
• A commitment to continuous submarine production in the UK through investments at BAE Systems in Barrow and Rolls Royce in Raynesway that will allow for the production of a submarine every 18 months. This will allow the AUKUS SSN programme to deliver a fleet of up to 12 nuclear-powered attack submarines.
• A commitment to build up to 7,000 new long-range weapons in the UK.
• Investment of more than £1 billion to integrate the armed forces through a new Digital Targeting Web delivered in 2027. Operating alongside the greater use of AI and autonomy, it will connect “sensors, deciders and effectors” to create choice and speed in deciding the response to any identified threat, across all domains.
• The creation of UK Defence Innovation, including a £400 million fund to grow and support UK-based companies.
• The establishment of a new Defence Exports Office.
• At least £7 billion of funding in the current Parliament to deliver “a generational renewal of military accommodation”, including over £1.5 billion in new investment for rapid work to improve service family accommodation.

The government also outlined its intention to combine AI and autonomy with conventional warfighting capabilities, to create a new “hybrid navy”, including transforming the UK’s aircraft carriers to become the “first European hybrid air wing” combining fast jets, long-range weapons and drones; a “British Army that is 10X more lethal”; and a “next-generation RAF…to defend Britain’s skies and strike anywhere in the world”.

A new Defence Investment Plan

The 2025 SDR differs from its predecessors in that previous defence reviews have generally been far more explicit in setting out the future force mix, providing detail such as the number of aircraft, ships, or armoured vehicles that the MOD intends to procure, support or cut.

SDR 25 deliberately does not do that, advocating instead “a model of constant innovation of the Integrated Force at wartime pace, delivered through a new partnership with industry”.

The government has said that a Defence Investment Plan (DIP) will be presented before the end of the year that will “deliver the SDR’s vision”. Replacing the previous Defence Equipment Plan, the investment plan may provide further detail of the capabilities, and numbers, the MOD intends to procure and support over the next decade to meet its objectives.

In September 2025, the Ministry of Defence also published a Defence Industrial Strategy, which sets out how the department intends to reform procurement, innovate “at a wartime pace” and strengthen and expand the UK’s defence industrial base.

Commons Library briefing papers

The Commons Library has published a series of briefing papers which examine individual aspects of UK defence and the outcomes of the Strategic Defence Review, and which lay the groundwork for scrutinising decisions that may come out of the MOD’s Defence Investment Plan.

A Commons Library timeline of the strategies and consultations that the SDR promised will be published shortly.

• Strategic Defence Review 2025: NATO, June 2025. What does the SDR mean by a ‘NATO first’ approach?
• Strategic Defence Review 2025: Armed forces personnel, June 2025. The SDR said a “workforce crisis” had been created.
• Strategic Defence Review 2025: Armed forces housing, June 2025. What did the SDR say about service accommodation?
• Strategic Defence Review 2025: The UK’s nuclear deterrent, June 2025. What are the implications of the SDR for the UK's nuclear deterrent?
• Strategic Defence Review 2025: The Royal Navy and Royal Fleet Auxiliary, November 2025. What did the UK's 2025 Strategic Defence Review recommend for the Royal Navy and Royal Fleet Auxiliary?
• Strategic Defence Review 2025: The British Army, December 2025.What did the UK's 2025 Strategic Defence Review recommend for the British Army?
• UK defence in 2025: Integrated air and missile defence, June 2025. What air defence capabilities does the UK have to protect the UK homeland and what did the SDR say?
• UK defence in 2025: Renewed interest in the Arctic, November 2025. How is UK defence responding to increasing geopolitical competition in the Arctic/ High North?
• UK defence in 2025: Tanks, armoured vehicles and artillery, May 2025. How the army is organised, modernisation plans and a summary of the army's current and future fleets of armoured vehicles.
• UK defence in 2025: Warships and the surface fleet, November 2025. A summary of current ships in the Royal Navy and Royal Fleet Auxiliary and planned vessels.
• UK defence in 2025: Aircraft fleets, April 2025. What aircraft do the armed forces fly now? What aircraft will they operate in the future?
• AUKUS submarine (SSN-A) programme, August 2025. A major part of the AUKUS agreement between the UK, the US and Australia is the delivery of a conventionally armed, nuclear-powered submarine fleet for Australia.