Britain Names Tekever's AR5 as the Watchkeeper Replacement — Up to GBP 400 Million Over Ten Years
London, 25 July 2026
Key points
- The Ministry of Defence named Tekever's AR5 on 25 July as the replacement for the British Army's Thales Watchkeeper WK450, under Project Corvus — up to GBP 400 million over ten years
- Six air vehicles come first, with as many as 24 delivered by 2029, built at Tekever's new manufacturing site at Swindon; entry into service is stated as "later this year", subject to contract signature and final approvals
- The ministry concluded there was no time to run a fresh competition and awarded a sole-source contract, due to be signed by 31 August 2026
- The AR5 is a medium-altitude, medium-endurance fixed-wing system with a 7.3-metre wingspan, up to 50 kilograms of sensor payload and endurance up to 20 hours
Britain named Tekever's AR5 as the British Army's Watchkeeper replacement on 25 July, worth up to GBP 400 million over ten years — a sole-source award made because the competition that should have preceded it could not be run in time.
Watchkeeper is the programme this is meant to close out. Ordered as the Army's organic intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition and reconnaissance system, it delivered late, flew little and was withdrawn early, and the replacement requirement arrived with the fleet already going out of service. That sequencing is what the ministry cites for the procurement route: a fresh competition would not have produced aircraft before the capability gap opened.
Tekever's argument is the inverse of Watchkeeper's history. The Portuguese-British firm's AR5 has flown surveillance sorties over Ukraine and maritime tasks for British customers, and the aircraft the Army buys are to be built in Britain, at a Swindon site not yet open, with the ministry citing hundreds of jobs sustained and created.
Everything load-bearing here is still conditional. The named figure is a ten-year ceiling rather than a contract value; the six initial aircraft and the 24 by 2029 are subject to a signature the ministry itself dates to 31 August; and an in-service date of "later this year" leaves a matter of months between signature and fielding for a system that has to be integrated into Army ISTAR. What the selection does settle is the acquisition philosophy, and it is the one Großwald Signal No. 111 has tracked across European armies this year: buy an airframe already proven in Ukrainian and maritime service, accept a smaller, cheaper aircraft than the one being replaced, and treat competition as a cost the schedule cannot bear. The near marker is the signature date itself.
