Rolls-Royce Submarines Partners With INFINITY on Derby Tech Park Backing 17,500 Jobs
Rolls-Royce Submarines has signed a strategic partnership with INFINITY to develop large-scale prototypes of advanced defence components at a new 200-acre technology park in Derby, in a deal announced on 6 November 2026.
The park will bring together full-scale prototyping, digital engineering, testing and validation, skills development and supply-chain collaboration on a single site. The partners will build sovereign manufacturing capacity in hot isostatic pressing, power beam welding and additive manufacturing, techniques aimed at shortening development cycles and cutting material use and cost per unit.
What the wider project means for jobs
The project as a whole is estimated to create 17,500 skilled jobs across the East Midlands. That figure covers the wider INFINITY technology park, not Rolls-Royce hires alone; the company has not given a separate recruitment number for its own part. Rolls-Royce Submarines currently employs more than 5,500 people.
The Rolls-Royce Nuclear Skills Academy already operates at the site, and the new agreement will let the company develop and test manufacturing techniques away from its Raynesway site, where it builds nuclear reactor systems for the Royal Navy's submarine fleet.
Why the partnership matters
Rolls-Royce designs, manufactures and supports the pressurised water reactors powering every Royal Navy submarine. The partnership comes as the business grows to meet demand from the Royal Navy and from Australia's nuclear-powered submarine programme under the AUKUS agreement.
Engineering and technology director Lee Warren said the INFINITY park would let Rolls-Royce focus on delivery at Raynesway while leading work on advanced manufacturing for the next generation of nuclear power. INFINITY chief executive Professor Gary Jones said the agreement would help provide new capabilities for the UK defence programme. The facilities are also intended to serve fusion, fission, defence and aerospace work; UK Fusion Energy has separately partnered with INFINITY around the STEP fusion programme.
