GKN Aerospace joins Anduril UK team for Project NYX next phase

GKN contributes its experience in light structures and advanced manufacturing. The platforms are autonomous and collaborative, meant to work with Apache helicopters and give the Army more mass, greater reach and better survivability in contested environments.

From its Isle of Wight base, where about 1,000 people work for it, GKN will help ramp up output of the aircraft. It sees the programme creating as many as 100 skilled jobs on the island over time.

Anduril UK leads the team, with Archer, the eVTOL developer, and several British technology firms alongside GKN. GKN describes the intended capability as flexible and modular, and presents NYX as an example of government and industry reinforcing Britain’s sovereign defence manufacturing base.

Why it matters

In December 2025 the two firms entered an exclusive teaming agreement under which GKN handles airframe manufacture and electrical integration for NYX. Archer adds eVTOL and hybrid-propulsion expertise to the airframe design, which has to satisfy Army demands for rapid fielding and autonomous lift over long range.

Dave Bond, head of defence technology at GKN, called the deal a major strategic alignment when it was signed. Anduril calls the effort the Army’s Land Autonomous Collaborative Platform and says it should yield a British capability instead of relying on imported systems.

Anduril’s UK supplier network already involves more than 100 companies, among them Flarebright and Olsen Actuators, and Anduril has said further opportunities are under consideration at GKN’s Cowes facility. Anduril UK’s managing director, Rich Drake, called the partnership a step toward delivering sovereign solutions to the Ministry of Defence with the depth of British engineering talent. Anduril has expanded its UK presence since 2019, with contracts from the Royal Marines and Strategic Command, and says this phase of NYX is meant to bring new capability, investment and competition to land robotics and autonomous aviation. GKN says it intends to keep investing as the programme moves forward.