Royal Navy selects professional services firms for Aurora consortium

An engineering partnership is set to provide expertise to the Royal Navy, under a new five-year contract. Consultants from Atkins, QinetiQ and BMT will now become the go-to procurement option for the UK’s Defence Equipment and Support organisation.

The UK’s Defence Equipment and Support (DE&S) is an arms-length defence acquisition organisation for the Ministry of Defence (MoD). As the organisation looks to generate and maintain new equipment for the Royal Navy and Royal Navy Auxilary fleets until 2028, it has penned a new agreement with three firms, working as the Aurora Engineering Partnership.

Aurora comprises of professionals from BMT, QinetiQ and Atkins. QinetiQ is a prominent science and engineering firm, serving the defence, security, and critical infrastructure sectors – testing various technologies, systems, and procedures to ensure their efficacy. BMT is a provider of technical expertise and consultancy services, specialising in design and risk management services for clients including the defence sector. And Atkins supplies project management consultancy services to a range of clients, including the MoD, which it has served for more than 30 years.

Aurora and a team of specialised providers have been established under the MoD’s Engineering Delivery Partner (EDP) contract to become the primary procurement option for engineering services for DE&S, as well as other departments and agencies within the MoD. The £22 million engineering contract relating to the Navy is the first example of that in action – with the Aurora collective supporting the DE&S Ships Maintenance Management (SMM) team.

SMM owner, Commander Matt Shirvill, said, “I am really pleased to be placing this contract to provide essential maintenance support to the surface and sub-surface fleets and the wider maritime support community. Working together as one team, SMM and Aurora have secured world-class engineering excellence to support and empower frontline naval operations across the globe.”

Over the next five years, Aurora has been tasked with providing the DE&S Maritime community with specialised reliability-centred management (RCM) expertise. This will involve support for platform and equipment maintenance generation, which includes conducting RCM studies, and training the workforce in methodology and application.

The Royal Navy often looks to private sector expertise to help modernise and rationalise its facilities. Previously, this also saw a consortium led by Capita, and including Raytheon UK, Elbit Systems UK and Fujitsu work to transform the Royal Navy’s training analysis, design, delivery, assurance, and management and support services.