Queen Elizabeth Class Aircraft Carriers Programme overview
- Two aircraft carriers operated by the Royal Navy: HMS Queen Elizabeth (R08) and HMS Prince of Wales (R09)
- The largest warships ever built for the Royal Navy
- Built by the Aircraft Carrier Alliance: BAE Systems, Babcock, Thales UK, A&P Group and Rolls-Royce
- Sections built across multiple UK yards; assembled at Babcock’s Rosyth dockyard
- Programme cost: approximately £6.2 billion for both ships, against an original estimate of around £3.9 billion
- HMS Queen Elizabeth commissioned: December 2017
- HMS Prince of Wales commissioned: December 2019
- Home port: HMNB Portsmouth
Technical specifications
- Displacement: approximately 65,000 tonnes (full load)
- Length: 280m
- Beam: 70m (flight deck)
- Complement: approximately 700 ship’s company; up to 1,600 with air wing and staff embarked
- Propulsion: Integrated Electric Propulsion (IEP), combining two Rolls-Royce MT30 gas turbines and four diesel generators driving electric motors; no mechanical gearboxes
- Speed: in excess of 25 knots
- Flight deck configuration: ski-jump (STOVL), optimised for the F-35B Lightning II
- Aircraft capacity: up to 36 F-35B in standard operations; up to 72 in theoretical surge capacity
- Defensive systems: Phalanx close-in weapon system, Miniguns, Type 997 Artisan 3D radar
HMS Queen Elizabeth. UK MOD © Crown copyright 2023
Capability and air wing
The Queen Elizabeth class operate the F-35B variant of the Lightning II, which uses short take-off and vertical landing (STOVL) rather than catapult launch. The air wing is drawn from both the RAF and Royal Navy, with 617 Squadron (the Dambusters) and 809 Naval Air Squadron as the primary F-35B units. The carriers can also operate Merlin HM2 helicopters in the anti-submarine and airborne early warning roles (the latter under the Crowsnest programme), Wildcat for surface search and utility tasks, and Chinook for heavy lift when required.
During a full carrier strike group deployment, the ships are escorted by a combination of Type 45 destroyers, Type 23 frigates, a nuclear-powered submarine, and a Royal Fleet Auxiliary support ship, alongside allied vessels.
F-35B taking off from the flight deck of HMS Queen Elizabeth. UK MOD © Crown copyright 2023
Problems and setbacks
The Queen Elizabeth class aircraft carriers have faced a significant number of problems since entering service.
- Cost overruns: Programme costs rose from approximately £3.9 billion to £6.2 billion, a pattern familiar from other major UK defence procurement programmes.
- Propeller shaft seal failure: HMS Queen Elizabeth suffered a defective propeller shaft seal during her maiden operational deployment with Carrier Strike Group 21 in 2021, taking on water and requiring repairs at Mayport, Florida.
- HMS Prince of Wales propeller shaft coupling failure: In 2022, Prince of Wales suffered a more serious propeller shaft coupling failure shortly after departing Portsmouth for a major exercise. She was withdrawn from service for extended repairs, leaving the UK temporarily without a deployable carrier.
- Simultaneous unavailability: The combination of maintenance cycles, defects and manning pressures has meant the Royal Navy has struggled to keep both carriers available at the same time, undermining one of the original arguments for building two ships.
- Manning shortfalls: The Royal Navy has faced persistent manpower problems, and crewing both carriers to full complement simultaneously has proved difficult.
- Crowsnest delays: The Crowsnest airborne early warning system, carried by Merlin helicopters, entered service significantly behind schedule and with a more limited initial capability than planned, leaving a gap in the strike group’s ability to detect low-level threats.
- F-35B numbers: The UK’s F-35B fleet remains small relative to the carriers’ capacity. During CSG21, US Marine Corps F-35Bs were embarked to supplement RAF and Royal Navy aircraft, raising questions about whether the UK can fill its own flight decks without assistance.
- No catapults: The decision to use STOVL rather than catapult-assisted take-off and arrested recovery (CATOBAR) limits the aircraft types that can operate from the carriers and prevents the use of fixed-wing airborne early warning aircraft such as the US Navy’s E-2D Hawkeye. The original programme included catapults; the (questionable?) decision to remove them was made in 2012 on cost grounds, a saving that subsequently proved more expensive than anticipated when the consequences were fully understood.
Are the carriers even relevant in the modern battlespace?
The Queen Elizabeth class sits at the centre of one of the most significant arguments in British defence policy.
The case for
Carrier strike groups remain among the most powerful instruments of conventional military power available to a state. They provide a mobile, sovereign air base that does not depend on access to a foreign country’s territory, a capability that was decisive in the Falklands and remains relevant wherever land bases are unavailable or politically off-limits. For the UK, which frames itself as a globally engaged middle power, the ability to project credible air power at distance is central to that identity.
The CSG21 deployment in 2021, which transited the Indo-Pacific and sailed through the South China Sea, demonstrated that the UK can operate a carrier strike group at reach and that the ships attract significant political and diplomatic attention. Allies take the UK more seriously as a partner when it brings a carrier to the table. The ships also serve as platforms for interoperability with the US Navy, a relationship that underlies much of British defence policy.
Economically, the programme sustained shipbuilding and engineering skills across a number of UK yards that might otherwise have been lost, and supports the broader Rolls-Royce and defence supply chain.
The case against
Critics argue that the carriers represent a strategic choice made for the last war rather than the next one. The proliferation of long-range anti-ship missiles, including hypersonic variants in Chinese and Russian inventories, means that a carrier operating in a contested environment faces threats that would have been inconceivable when the programme was started in the 1990s. The loss of HMS Sheffield to a single Exocet in 1982 prompted a generation of argument about surface ship vulnerability; the threat environment today is substantially more demanding.
The escort problem is acute. A full carrier strike group requires multiple destroyers and frigates to provide air, surface and sub-surface defence. The Royal Navy’s surface fleet is smaller than at any point in the post-war era, and providing adequate escort for a deployed carrier while maintaining other commitments has proven difficult. A carrier without adequate escort is a liability, not an asset.
There is also the question of F-35B numbers. We are committed to this aircraft due to the lack of catapults on the ships. A carrier with a partial air wing is less capable than its dimensions suggest, and the UK’s current fleet of F-35Bs is insufficient to fill both flight decks simultaneously, or even one flight deck to its planned complement. The aircraft programme has faced its own delays and cost pressures.
More broadly, some analysts argue that the money spent on two large carriers and their escorts would have delivered greater military effect if invested in submarines, long-range strike missiles, cyber capabilities and autonomous systems. The Royal Navy and British Army have both faced capability and manpower cuts in the years since the carrier programme was approved, in part because of the budgetary pressure the ships represent.
The counterargument is that these are not either/or choices and that a serious military power needs both high-end conventional platforms and emerging capabilities. The argument is pointless now anyway, the carriers are already built; the pressing question now is whether the wider force structure to support them can be sustained.
Development and service timeline
- 1998: Strategic Defence Review identifies requirement for two new aircraft carriers
- 2003: Aircraft Carrier Alliance formed
- 2007: Building contracts signed; design work well advanced
- 2009: Steel cut for HMS Queen Elizabeth
- 2012: Decision to switch from CATOBAR to STOVL; catapults removed from design
- 2014: HMS Queen Elizabeth floated out at Rosyth
- 2017: HMS Queen Elizabeth commissioned
- 2019: HMS Prince of Wales commissioned
- 2021: Carrier Strike Group 21 deployment; propeller shaft seal failure on Queen Elizabeth
- 2022: Prince of Wales propeller shaft coupling failure; extended repairs
- 2023 onwards: Both ships return to service; Queen Elizabeth undergoes scheduled maintenance periods
UK industrial content
The Queen Elizabeth class was built under the Aircraft Carrier Alliance, which brought together BAE Systems (responsible for sections built at Govan and Portsmouth), Babcock (Rosyth, where final assembly took place, and Devonport), A&P Group (Tyneside) and Thales UK (systems integration). Rolls-Royce supplied the MT30 marine gas turbines, produced at its Bristol facility. The programme supported tens of thousands of jobs across the UK supply chain and was one of the largest single industrial undertakings in British manufacturing in the early 21st century. On that criteria alone it should be regarded as a success.
