BAE Systems looking to close UK shipyard

BAE Systems is looking to close one of its UK shipyards, with the yard in question to be named by the end of the year.

In an interview with the United Kingdom's Sunday Telegraph , BAE Systems Group managing director for Programmes and Support Nigel Whitehead said the company expected a "reduction in footprint," with its shipbuilding operations in Glasgow and Portsmouth apparently under examination.

"Part of that might actually be the cessation of manufacturing at one of the sites," he told the paper.

IHS Jane's notes that a number of professional services firms had been tasked with accessing BAE Systems' UK shipbuilding interests around the start of this year.

BAE Systems currently employs approximately 1,500 at its shipyard in Portsmouth and around 5,000 at its Glasgow yards (2,000 at Govan and around 3,000 at Scotstoun respectively).

A spokesperson for the company confirmed Whitehead's comments to IHS Jane's , adding that "peaks and troughs [in production] were part of the shipbuilding industry." The spokesperson added that the reduction was part of a rationalisation the company had been undertaking with the United Kingdom's Ministry of Defence (MoD) and other commercial companies.