Official Statistics

UK defence export statistics 2023

Updated 24 February 2025

1. Introduction 

This statistical release presents information and trends on UK defence exports over the period from 2013 to 2023. The scope of the statistics is the value of export contracts to overseas Ministries of Defence and associated Armed Services. The full value of a contract is assigned to the year in which it was signed, regardless of when physical delivery takes place. Further information can be found in the methodology paper accompanying this release on the GOV.UK website. 

Information about UK defence export orders comes solely from a survey of known UK defence exporters, carried out by the UK Defence Security Exports (UKDSE) team. Please see the methodology report published alongside these statistics for more information about data sources. 

The information collected on the defence market is vital to our understanding of the shape of the market and trends and helps UKDSE target support to the defence industry. 

This is the 11th year that defence export figures have been published as Official Statistics. These are designated as Official Statistics under the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007. Its aim is to support users to understand the strengths and limitations of these statistics, ensuring that the Department for Business and Trade (DBT) is compliant with the quality principles as stated in the Code of Practice for Statistics, and therefore, should help to reduce the risk of misusing data. 

1.1 Notice of change 

Previous releases have used other sources of data to supplement the UK survey for the UK export figures. Due to issues of comparability, for this release, other data sources have been removed from the UK export estimates. We have amended the time series in this publication to reflect these changes.

When removing the supplementary data sources over 2013 to 2022, this reduced the overall defence export estimates by 4%, equating to around £4 billion over the 10 years. Please use the amended time series figures from this year’s report when referring to export figures from previous years.

Additionally, for this year, we have removed the “rest of the world” defence exports section from the Official Statistics release due to issues of comparability, coverage, and quality. A separate “market intelligence” research publication will be published after this release that will cover DBT’s indicative estimates of the health of the “rest of the world” export market. 

1.2 Note on defence export trends and cycles 

Defence exports as measured by orders and contracts typically see significant peaks and troughs that may not reflect the flow of delivery or receipt of payment. This is because the fulfilment of those orders, along with any associated payments, could be spread over several years. That spread is not captured in the data collected for these statistics, and the value of orders can therefore change substantially from year to year. Moving 5-year averages are used in the graphs to present trends that are less affected by large changes from year to year.  

1.3 Note on inflation 

All figures are reported in nominal prices (not adjusted for inflation), unless otherwise stated. We recognise that some of the recent increases in trade values will be partly due to price increases.

1.4 Note on Ukraine 

Much of the UK’s transfers of defence equipment and expertise to Ukraine since Russia’s invasion in 2022 has been in the form of military assistance, rather than through private contracts that would appear in the UKDSE survey used for these statistics. For this reason, the defence export figures shown in this release do not show the full scale of UK military support or aid to Ukraine.

2. Executive summary 

The key findings from this publication are:

• in 2023, the UK won defence orders worth £14.5 billion, compared to £9.7 billion in 2022, an increase of approximately 49% in nominal prices
• over the 5 years from 2019 to 2023, annual UK defence orders averaged £9.6 billion 
• over the 5 years from 2019 to 2023, aerospace products and services exports are estimated to have accounted for 56% of the value of UK defence exports
• 2023 saw significant increases in exports to Europe; this was largely driven by major deals with Poland

3. UK defence exports 

The total value of UK export orders in 2023 was £14.5 billion, an increase of £4.8 billion in nominal prices compared to 2022, and the highest value of export orders since 2013. The increase in 2023 is due primarily to new contracts in Europe. 

To highlight trends which are not as affected by large orders within one year, Figure 1 includes a 5-year moving average, which shows the average of the annual totals seen in the 5 years up to and including the corresponding year. 

3.1 Figure 1: Value of UK defence export orders from 2013 to 2023 and 5-year moving average 

Source: UKDSE survey of UK defence exporters 

The 5-year moving average of UK defence exports orders has shown a trend of modest growth since 2018. Following below average exports in 2020 to 2021, possibly due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a substantial increase in defence exports in both 2022 and 2023. This reflects increased defence spending globally as a result of the war in Ukraine.

4. UK defence exports by destination region 

The Middle East^{[footnote 1]} was on average the largest market for UK defence export orders over the 5 years until 2022, before being overtaken by Europe in 2023. Five-year average exports to Europe increased from £1 billion in 2019 to £3.2 billion in 2023, accounting for an average of 34% total value of orders across the years. This is largely due to a large deal with Poland. 

Five-year moving average exports to the Middle East have shown a decline since 2019, reflecting a drop in in-year orders following large contracts in 2018 of Typhoon Aircraft and Brimstone Missiles to Qatar. Please see the note in Section 1 regarding the variability of orders and contracts. 

In addition to the 5-year moving averages, we have published the total value of UK defence export orders by destination region. This data is available in table 1 and can be downloaded, on the UK defence export statistics 2023. We recommend using the 5 years moving average as the best comparison between years and regions, as these are less affected by large changes from year to year.

4.1 Figure 2: Value of UK defence export orders by destination region: 5-year moving average 

Source: UKDSE survey of UK defence exporters 

5. UK defence exports by products and services

When processing the statistics, goods and services are categorised into the following 4 categories depending on their intended use: “aerospace, sea, land and unknown”. Aerospace products and services have accounted for the largest share of UK defence export orders for the entire period covered in this publication (2013 to 2023). For the 5-year period from 2019 to 2023, aerospace products and services accounted for 56% of the total value of UK defence export orders. 

Note that it is not always possible to relate contract information to a specific product and services group. Where contracts do not clearly fit within a specific product and services type, they have been included as ‘Mixed or Unknown’. 

In addition to the 5-year moving averages, we have published the total value of UK defence export orders by products and services. This data is available in table 2 and can be downloaded, on the UK defence export statistics 2023. We recommend using the 5 years moving average as the best comparison between years and regions, as these are less affected by large changes from year to year.

5.1 Figure 3: Value of UK defence export orders by products and services: 5-year moving average 

Source: UKDSE survey of UK defence exporters 

6. Further Information 

For further information, see the:

• UK Defence and Security Exports website 
• Department for Business and Trade statistics website 

7. Contact 

statistics@businessandtrade.gov.uk

Responsible statistician: Maddy Ell, Head of Sector Research and Statistics

Author: Katy Goodhead

Media enquiries: 020 7215 2000

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1. For the purposes of these statistics, Egypt is included in the Middle East rather than Africa. This should be considered if comparing with other trade statistics. ↩