Nearly 3,000 jobs could potentially be lost within the company's Military Air & Information and Shared Services businesses and at its head office.
The announcement is in response to changes in key programmes and the need to maintain competitiveness through offering affordable products and services to customers.
The potential job losses are as follows: 899 at Brough, East Riding of Yorkshire; 51 at Christchurch, Dorset; 78 at Farnborough, Hampshire; 74 at Filton, Bristol; 81 at Frimley, Surrey; 26 at Great Baddow, Essex; 35 at Hillend, Fife; 21 at Loughborough, Leicestershire; seven at Malvern, Worcestershire; 19 at New Malden, Surrey; 565 at Samlesbury, Lancashire; 843 at Warton and Preston, Lancashire; 132 at Yeovil, Somerset; 102 at other UK locations including Royal Air Force bases; and nine in overseas locations.
Ian King, chief executive, BAE Systems, commented: “Our customers are facing huge pressures on their defence budgets and affordability has become an increasing priority. Our business needs to rise to this challenge to maintain its competitiveness and ensure its long term future.
“Some of our major programmes have seen significant changes. The four partner nations in the Typhoon programme have agreed to slow production rates to help ease their budget pressures. Whilst this will help extend our production schedule and ensure the production line stays open until we receive anticipated export contracts, it does reduce the workload at a number of our sites.
King added that the pressure on the US defence budget and top level product changes will cause the anticipated increase in production rates of the F-35 to be slower than planned, which will have an impact on the workload. To remain competitive and be in the position of gaining new business in the future, BAE Systems has to reduce its overall costs, he said.
“This transformation process is not going to be easy. We understand that this is a time of uncertainty for our employees and we are committed to working with them and their representatives to explore ways of mitigating the potential job losses,” King added.
