Sigma deepens UK aerospace footprint with new £125m Rolls-Royce deal

Indian aerospace and defence manufacturer Sigma Advanced Systems has secured a further £125 million long-term agreement with Rolls-Royce, extending a relationship that has rapidly grown into a significant India-UK aerospace manufacturing partnership.

The latest agreement, announced on 25 August, will be delivered through Sigma’s recently acquired British subsidiary Bromford Precision Solutions in Leicester. It comes just four months after Sigma secured a separate seven-year agreement with Rolls-Royce worth nearly £300 million.

Together, the two contracts are worth about £425 million and substantially increase Sigma’s work for the British engine manufacturer, while placing its UK operations at the centre of an expanding dual-source manufacturing strategy.

The new agreement covers aero-engine rings, casings, lock plates and other critical engine structures. Production will be shared between Sigma’s manufacturing facilities in India and the UK, providing Rolls-Royce with geographically separated sources for key components.

Bromford acquisition quickly delivers new Rolls-Royce work

The contract is particularly significant because it follows Sigma’s acquisition of Bromford Precision Solutions and provides an early indication of how the Indian group intends to use its growing British manufacturing base.

Founded in 1988, Bromford specialises in high-precision aero-engine rings, casings and advanced machined components. The Leicestershire company has longstanding approvals from major manufacturers including Rolls-Royce and Siemens.
Those capabilities complement Sigma’s existing manufacturing operations rather than simply adding more capacity.

Bromford gives the group expertise in engine rings and casings, allowing it to take responsibility for a wider range of Rolls-Royce components.

John Rooney, Chief Executive Officer, Nasmyth, said: “This agreement underlines the strength of the UK aerospace manufacturing base and the value of bringing skilled, specialist sites like Bromford into a larger, more capable group. Alongside Nasmyth, Bromford strengthens our combined ability to support Rolls-Royce with greater capacity, broader capability and long-term reliability from UK soil. It’s a strong signal of confidence in UK manufacturing jobs and in the role this platform can play in sustaining critical engineering skills for the years ahead.“

Sigma said the new contract would secure Bromford’s long-term role within the group and support skilled engineering and manufacturing employment in the UK.

The acquisition also follows Sigma’s purchase of British precision engineering specialist Nasmyth Group in November 2025. With Nasmyth and Bromford now forming its UK aerospace platform, Sigma is building a manufacturing footprint on both sides of the India-UK industrial relationship.

Ross Niner, Managing Director, Bromford Precision Solutions, said: “Securing this LTA with Rolls Royce is a significant milestone for Bromford and a strong endorsement of our team’s expertise and capability.  As part of the wider Nasmyth and Sigma Advanced Systems group, we are well positioned to support Rolls Royce over the long term, combining Bromford’s proven aero engine expertise with the capability and scale of the wider Group.”

New award follows £300m agreement signed in April

The August award builds on a much larger Rolls-Royce agreement announced in April.

That seven-year contract, valued at nearly £300 million, established a long-term programme-level relationship between the companies and was structured around Sigma’s India-UK dual-source manufacturing network.

Under that model, manufacturing capacity in India is combined with Sigma’s British engineering and production operations. The arrangement gives Rolls-Royce greater flexibility in allocating work between facilities while reducing reliance on a single manufacturing location.

The April agreement was already a major step for Sigma, moving the company beyond individual component orders towards longer-duration work packages. The additional £125 million award now broadens the range of products it will manufacture and increases its content across Rolls-Royce aerospace programmes.

For Sigma, the two agreements also provide something increasingly valuable to aerospace suppliers: visibility over several years of production. Long-term contracts allow manufacturers to plan investments in machinery, skills and capacity against a more predictable workload.

India and UK facilities form dual-source supply chain

The latest contract also reflects a wider effort across aerospace manufacturing to make supply chains less vulnerable to disruption.

The model gives Rolls-Royce access to Indian manufacturing capacity while retaining established engineering and production capability close to its UK operations.

“This agreement is another strong marker of how far India’s precision engineering and defence-aerospace manufacturing base has come,” Sigma chief executive and executive director Sunil Kalidindi said.

“By combining Bromford’s specialist UK capabilities with our integrated India manufacturing network, we are able to offer a genuinely global, dual-source solution.”

The two Rolls-Royce agreements also illustrate how Sigma’s British acquisitions are changing the scale of its aerospace business. Instead of operating as separate overseas holdings, Nasmyth and Bromford are being integrated with its Indian facilities to pursue larger and longer-running work packages.