Prime Minister Keir Starmer published the Defence Investment Plan on 30 June 2026, setting out a trajectory to raise NATO-qualifying defence spending to 2.7% of GDP by 2027/28 and committing to meet the alliance's evolving targets by 2035, according to the Defence Investment Plan published by the Ministry of Defence.

The centrepiece is a £15 billion new funding boost earmarked to transform the Armed Forces, with the government projecting that the associated spending uplift will generate nearly 60,000 extra direct and indirect jobs across UK industry. The plan also allocates £790 million over four years to strengthen air, drone and missile defences at British homeland and overseas bases, including new radar systems, according to Reuters.

The 2.7% figure covers only NATO's core defence metric. The UK's broader commitment, announced in the PM's speech, is to spend 5% of GDP on wider security — a category that encompasses energy security and critical infrastructure alongside conventional defence. That 5% pledge was first signalled at the June 2025 NATO summit and the plan published on 30 June sets out how the UK intends to deliver it, with the 5% figure combining both defence spending and homeland security and national resilience.

The road to publication

The plan's arrival carries some political backstory. It was originally due in 2025 but was delayed, prompting a public warning from military chiefs in early June 2026 that the UK was running out of time. Starmer then personally confirmed to NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte on 13 June that the document would land before the NATO summit in July 2026. It has done so, with days to spare.

Forces welfare and housing

Beyond the headline spending numbers, the plan sits alongside a cluster of welfare commitments that have been accumulating since late 2024. The government agreed to buy back 36,347 military houses from private ownership in December 2024, reversing the privatisation of the Annington Homes estate. The Strategic Defence Review then added an extra £1.5 billion for forces housing, and a planning application has been submitted for 265 new net-zero houses at RAF Brize Norton as part of the wider estate regeneration programme.

What the numbers mean in practice

The 2.7% GDP figure for 2027/28 sits meaningfully above the old 2% floor that dominated NATO burden-sharing arguments for most of the past decade, but it is still some distance from the 3.5% core defence target that the alliance is now pushing member states toward — with the remaining gap folded into the broader 5% wider-security envelope. For the Treasury, the arithmetic is demanding: defence spending is being asked to grow faster than most other departmental budgets at a time when fiscal headroom remains tight. The 60,000 jobs projection will be scrutinised closely by the Office for Budget Responsibility and independent analysts; industrial multiplier claims of this kind have historically proved optimistic.

The sequencing — plan published, NATO summit to follow in July — is deliberate. The UK's credibility in those talks depends partly on showing a costed, time-bound trajectory rather than aspirational percentages alone. Whether the 2027/28 and 2035 milestones survive future spending reviews intact is the question Westminster insiders will be watching.