“Barrow should be the blueprint for how defence spending boosts communities,” the Prime Minister said on a visit earlier this year. Today’s AUKUS update turns that sentiment into work orders for yards in Barrow‑in‑Furness and reactor lines in Derby.

At the Pentagon on Wednesday, Defence Secretary John Healey met US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and Australia’s Richard Marles to move AUKUS from planning to delivery. “Our reviews are done. Now, we deliver,” Healey said, as Washington confirmed its own review had wrapped up. The message from all three: get kit to the fleet faster.

The Ministry of Defence says the UK has pushed £6 billion into AUKUS-related infrastructure over the past 18 months, focused on Barrow and Raynesway in Derby. That cash underwrites a faster build rate and the supply chain capacity to sustain it.

The plan now on the books is clear: expand the Royal Navy’s attack boat fleet to as many as 12 SSN‑AUKUS submarines and reach a ‘drumbeat’ of one new boat about every 18 months once the line is up to speed. For northern suppliers, that cadence means steady schedules rather than feast‑and‑famine.

On the Furness peninsula, the numbers are already moving. Government figures show more than 13,500 defence‑nuclear jobs in Barrow, up roughly 1,000 since mid‑2024, with around 1,800 apprentices and 500 graduates in training at BAE’s Submarines Academy. Barrow was also granted Royal Port status this autumn, underscoring its long‑term role.

Derby’s Raynesway site-where Rolls‑Royce Submarines builds the reactors-has secured A$4.6bn (£2.4bn) from Australia alongside UK funding, supporting an expansion expected to create about 1,170 skilled roles. Derby City Council has set up a formal planning agreement with Rolls‑Royce to keep the programme moving at pace.

Beyond immediate hires, ministers say AUKUS sits inside a wider Defence Nuclear Enterprise that could support around 65,000 UK jobs by 2030, with average salaries near £45,500-about 20% above the national mean. Those wages circulate in towns like Barrow and Derby, not just in Whitehall statistics.

Pillar II-AUKUS tech-also matters for northern firms. The UK’s new Atlantic Bastion initiative is pulling autonomous vessels, AI‑enabled sensing and crewed platforms into a “hybrid” force for the North Atlantic, opening doors for software, composites and electronics suppliers from Cumbria to the North East.

There are still headwinds to watch. The US review flagged production capacity pressures, but the line from Washington this week is “full steam ahead.” For the UK, the Geelong Treaty signed with Australia in July sets up deeper bilateral co‑operation-workforce, infrastructure and design-so that delivery doesn’t stall.

Local MPs have been pressing the opportunity case. Derby North’s Catherine Atkinson highlighted apprenticeships tied to Raynesway’s growth, while Barrow’s Michelle Scrogham argues AUKUS is already spreading orders across constituencies nationwide. For northern SMEs, that means it’s time to pitch into a supply chain that will run for decades.

The US now uses “Secretary of War” alongside “Secretary of Defense”-an executive‑order change this year-which is why the title appeared in the MoD release. It’s a small detail, but a useful reminder: politics can shift, programmes can wobble, yet the work landing in Barrow and Derby today is anchored by signed agreements and live budgets.

For families across Furness and the East Midlands, the immediate takeaway is simpler: more skilled jobs, more apprenticeships, and a long horizon of steady work-underpinned by a build plan that aims to launch a new submarine roughly every year and a half. Defence policy rarely feels this local, but today it does.