UK Signs the Tekever AR5 Watchkeeper Replacement Contract — Six Aircraft First, Up to 24 by 2029 Under a GBP 400 Million Ceiling
London, 16 September 2026
Key points
- The Ministry of Defence announced on 16 September that it had awarded Tekever the contract for the British Army's long-endurance surveillance drone, worth up to GBP 400 million: an initial order of six AR5 aircraft, rising to as many as 24 by 2029
- The aircraft carries up to 50 kilograms of cameras and sensors and will be built at a new Tekever factory in Swindon; the ministry says the company will support more than 1,000 skilled jobs across its British sites by 2030
- A second award the same day, GBP 16 million, buys more than 1,025 small drones: 245 FOXE-NATO from Evolve Dynamics, 670 Skydio X10 through Marlborough Communications and 110 SONORA from Brigantes with Harmattan AI
- The release gives no in-service date. Watchkeeper, in service since 2014, has a planned out-of-service date of March 2027, which defence minister Luke Pollard has confirmed to Parliament
The contract the ministry said in July it would award without further competition is now signed, and the date that accompanied the July announcement has gone from the text.
When the ministry named the AR5 on 25 July, entry into service was given as later in 2026, subject to signature. Its transparency notice that month, as trade press reported it, recorded that the Project Corvus competition closed on 13 February with eight responses, that none was judged suitable, and that the award would go to Tekever directly, with signature no earlier than 31 August. The same reporting describes a five-year core contract of about GBP 136 million inside the ten-year GBP 400 million ceiling. Pollard, in a written answer this year, said the Corvus capability "is expected to be delivered in November 2026".
Wednesday's release repeats the quantities and the ceiling and adds the factory and the jobs. It does not repeat November.
A ministry that has given Parliament a delivery month and then publishes a contract announcement without it has either lost the month or does not want to be held to it, and the Army's margin is four months either way. Six aircraft is the firm order; the 24 and the GBP 400 million are ceilings, and on the reported core value roughly two thirds of the headline sum is optional. That structure is rational for a type the Army has not operated, and it also means the replacement for a fleet retiring in March is, contractually, six airframes of about 180 kilograms from a company that was the only one of eight to clear the ministry's own pass-or-fail stages. The small-drone buy announced alongside it is the larger statement about where the Army's reconnaissance mass is going. Signal No. 148 watches for the first AR5 in service before March 2027; the earlier tell is whether the out-of-service date moves again.
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