Construction begins on £112m Rolls-Royce facilities
3 days ago
By Jude Winter, Derby, BBC
Construction work has started on new £112m facilities for a Rolls-Royce centre in Derby.
On Monday, the company announced a £300m investment in the UK, including £140m for Derby, with £112m allocated to a regeneration of its Sinfin A campus.
The Sinfin A site will see six acres (2.4 hectares) of existing buildings and infrastructure cleared to make way for two new engineering and manufacturing services facilities, which will house over 300 employees.
“This is the largest investment in Derby in over a decade, and we are really proud of our ties with the city. It is a symbol of our commitment to Derby,” said Paula Clarke, director of test and experimental engineering at Rolls-Royce.
The new manufacturing services building will be approximately 3,300 sq m (35,520 sq ft), accommodating 90 employees, and will house manufacturing services teams supporting factory operations.
The new engineering building will be around 10,500 sq m (11,3021 sq ft), accommodating 230 employees, and is intended to bring engineering teams together to work on projects focusing on “improving engine durability and performance”.
Rolls-Royce aims to complete the buildings by the end of 2028.
Clarke added: “The engineers in Derby do a phenomenal job with the capability they already have, and our job is to make sure they have capabilities fit for the future and to keep evolving the tools and infrastructure they work with. Speaking for my engineers who will work in these buildings, they are delighted to see this type of investment, and it reinforces how much we value them.”
The company also notes that 20 tonnes of material from the old buildings will be reused, with 60 tonnes recycled. Obsolete buildings will also be cleared for future opportunities.
Site clearance, which began in 2025, is approximately 90% complete.
The remaining £140m allocated to Derby will be used to refurbish the existing Aftermarket Support Facility (ASF), one of the site's oldest buildings dating back to the 1920s. The ASF facility is already used for rapid “module swaps” on Trent 1000 engines powering Boeing 787 aircraft.