The ever-changing and evolving story of air power is one of constant imagination, invention and adaptation, in which we’ve had to evolve time and time again to stay ahead of those who threaten our security.

The Defence Investment Plan is a £298 billion down payment over the next four years to deliver our Strategic Defence Review. It has £31 billion earmarked for air and space. It is one era-defining blueprint for a hybrid digitally integrated and AI-enabled air force.

A blueprint that protects the homeland by bringing together two commands with our new integrated air, space and missile defence operations centre. A blueprint that delivers 3 gold standard combat air platforms in F-35, Typhoon and Tempest.

And that creates high value jobs across all four of our home nations. Now, it also injects £5 billion into UK drone innovation and capabilities. And that’s up from £4 billion that we previously announced. It includes autonomous fighter jets, networked with our crewed platforms to improve their effectiveness and survivability.

An RAF C-17 Globemaster aircraft carrying out a flypast over Buckingham Palace in London. PIC: Cpl Tomas Barnard RAF/MoD Crown copyright/PA Wire

placeholder image — An RAF C-17 Globemaster aircraft carrying out a flypast over Buckingham Palace in London. PIC: Cpl Tomas Barnard RAF/MoD Crown copyright/PA Wire

In this sector, we all know the dangers that we are facing and increasingly risky and dangerous times that we all live in. We all understand what’s at stake and the skills and bravery that is required to meet that moment.

Importantly, it’s not just those in the air that matter, it’s all those on the ground that make the operations in the air possible. Now, moving beyond NATO, because the UK remains NATO-first, but not NATO only, our RAF F-35s conducted over 1,000 joint air exercise sorties as part of our 2025 Carrier Straight Group deployment to the Indo-Pacific.

Some of those teams were reunited earlier this year in the Middle East. as Iran targeted its neighbours in response to the US and Israeli attacks. The RAF flew over 3,000 hours of defensive missions, intercepting over 100 drones and missiles. Again, we thank them, the air crews and the ground crews that supported them for the skills shown and the lives that were saved.

If you haven’t read the Defence Investment Plan, it’s worth it. It sets out a transformation that we haven’t seen in peacetime in the UK for a very, very long time. Space and aerospace industries received a huge boost from our defence investment plan and that will fuel those sectors over the coming decades.

Over the next four years alone, £8.6 billion has been allocated to fund the design and testing phase of GCAP. A further £1.1 billion to upgrade and sustain our Typhoon combat force well into the 2040s, and more than £4.5 billion invested in our transporter fleet of A400 Air Voyager and C-17s, and more than £2 billion to lay the ground for our first F-35As that will enable the RAF to join NATO’s tactical nuclear mission, providing a long overdue additional rung on our escalation ladder.

The DIP also included £360 million for the full recapitalisation of the jet training system that will ultimately deliver new jets for our Red Arrows. And most eye-catching of all, building on Storm Shroud system that I spoke about last year, we also pressed go on our next phase of autonomous combat air power with our Collaborative Combat Aircraft programme. That will develop autonomous jets here in the UK, providing new levels of lethality and survivability for our crew jets.

We’ve been investing in deep strike innovation alongside NATO allies, and steadily building the foundations for the growth we want to see in our aerospace sector, including with our £182 million skills package.

That includes five new Defence Technical Excellence Colleges, with two located in the heartlands of our aerospace sector in Yeovil and Blackpool, providing the foundations to deliver on our mission to make the UK the best place in the world to grow a defence business. And defence hasn’t invested in skills in the way that it has needed to, but we need to now, because with more of a rising defence budget being spent with companies based in Britain, we need to supply more people into their goals, more young people finding their first career, more graduates, and more mid-career reskilling.

So to riff off an old marketing slogan, the future’s bright, the future’s Air Force blue.

The RAF was a big winner on the Defence Investment Plan, strengthened by our £27.8 billion investment over the next four years to build Europe’s first sixth generation Air Force.

Built around sixth generation sovereign Tempest jets, flying alongside autonomous storm fighter combat aircraft and frontier drone technologies developed with allies made in the UK, fuelling growth in our defence and aerospace sectors and galvanising deterrence, alongside our upgraded Typhoon and expanded F-35 fleets, showing the continued importance of air power to deter and defeat as we boost security for the UK, for Europe and our partners around the globe.

Luke Pollard is Minister for Defence Readiness and Industry. This is an edited version of a recent speech to the Global Air and Space Chiefs' Conference