Leonardo UK is part of the Italian Leonardo Group, one of the top ten aerospace, defence, and security companies in the world. Leonardo UK serves people across the world in the helicopter, electronics, cybersecurity, and space arenas.
“I am so proud that here in the UK we have built a successful, international, competitive business that is seen as a valued business which continues to draw investment from our parent company in Italy,” says Adam Clarke, Managing Director of Leonardo Helicopters UK. “What distinguishes us from our many global competitors is the amount of research, engineering, and advanced manufacturing we do. We generate intellectual property that is exported across the world, making a significant contribution to the UK economy.”
Leonardo does this from the Somerset town of Yeovil, long known, and recently officially recognised as, the “Home of British Helicopters.” The town has a long history and proud heritage in the sector, which was recently commemorated with official boundary signage and tributes. For over 80 years helicopters have been exported out of Yeovil to customers in the Asia-Pacific, Europe, Africa, and North and South America.
“Yeovil is at the heart of world-leading innovating within British aerospace,” Clarke tells us.
Yeovil’s role in British aerospace is not just about its heritage, however. It is about its future.
“We want to build on that for our products and our people. Our specialised helicopter design and engineering processes have been key to the project of developing uncrewed systems. It is an exciting time.”
Leonardo is well-rooted in the community and recognises the importance of collaborating with that community. A £10-million research and development facility, called iAero, has been constructed near its site, and that has been integrated into a network of research opportunities.
“Leonardo is designed to support the competitiveness in the manufacturing sector,” Clarke explains. “IAero is the perfect petri dish to grow innovative ecosystems. We are leading the British aerospace industry.”
A New Vision
Adam Clarke is relatively new to his role as Leonardo UK’s Managing Director, coming into the role last year, but we arrived with a clear vision for the company’s transformation.
“It’s very easy for businesses to stand still,” Clarke says. “But I am keen to let Leonardo grow and fulfil its potential. Transformation is the primary way to embed best processes and drive behaviour changes. We want to remove bureaucracy and streamline our processes to win efficiently and effectively, completing projects on time and to the required level of quality.”
Leonardo targets top-level, high-priority, cross-functional issues, and draws expertise from right across the business to make that happen, but Clarke does not pretend it is easy.
“Worthwhile change can be lengthy, challenging, even frustrating at times,” he says. “But everyone is responsible for the solutions we create, and we continuously evolve and adapt to develop them.”
By “everyone”, Clarke means the highly skilled staff of 8,000 people Leonardo employs in the UK, and he manages more than 3,000 people in Somerset at the company’s helicopter base. And that team is growing – this year alone Leonardo UK has expanded its recruitment drive by 50% to 800 places, while also supporting 26,000 British jobs beyond the company itself.
“We have a supply chain focused on high-value work, our employees are 80% more productive than the UK average,” Clarke says proudly.
When we speak the British news is flooded with pictures of young people receiving their GCSE results, and as we talk about it, Clarke’s passion for apprenticeships as a route for young people comes through clearly.
“They are important to our culture in the UK and critical to communities,” he says. “In Yeovil we have many generations of the same family working for the same company. We have been working in partnership with Yeovil College for 60 years, the two organisations are a natural fit.”
Developing the Best
With the pipeline of talent that partnership ensures, Clarke sees a bright future for Leonardo.
“We are developing some of the best technology on the planet,” Clarke says simply. “We are seeing exciting opportunities across many domains, planning decades into the future with an ongoing competition to provide the new helicopter for the British armed forces.”
Leonardo is leading the way in its sector. The company has been awarded a $1 billion CAN (€690 million) contract for the AW101/CH-149 “Cormorant” SAR helicopter Mid-Life Upgrade (CMLU) Project by the Canadian Department of National Defence. The contract will see Leonardo upgrade 13 existing Cormorant Search and Rescue Helicopters alongside the augmentation of a further three aircraft.
At the same time, Leonardo has signed a contract with Kawasaki Heavy Industries for additional MCH-101 naval helicopters for the Japanese Maritime Self-Defence Force (JMSDF).
The deal marks the start of a mid-life update programme for the MCH-101, a license-built version of the Leonardo AW101 helicopter.
Leonardo has also signed a long-term Strategic Partnership Agreement with Morson Projects to enable the UK’s only onshore helicopter manufacturer to offload engineering work to augment the company’s existing, highly skilled engineering capacity.
“These deals are not just good for Leonardo, or even Yeovil, but for the UK as a whole,” Clarke emphasises. “Our figures show a spend of £470 million across 655 UK [helicopters] suppliers in 2022, and 25% of that was with small to medium enterprises. 40% of it was spent in the most deprived local authorities in England. We have a strong order book and demand is high for UK helicopters. Meeting that demand through an onshore supply chain allows for resilience while also supporting UK skills and research. That is the importance of Leonardo to the UK economy.”
But Clarke insists there is still a great deal more to do.
“Looking further into the future, we are continuing our work on the uncrewed or ‘drone’ helicopters, with a UK MOD contract for a technology demonstrator programme, we were recently awarded,” he says. “In the Southwest today, we are working on the technologies of tomorrow.”
