The United Kingdom (UK) has announced its intent to increase defence spending to 2.5% of gross domestic product (GDP) by 2027. It has reinforced this initial commitment by announcing in tandem plans to increase defence spending further still (subject to economic and fiscal conditions), to 3.0% of GDP by the end of the next Parliament (in principle, around 2034).
In a statement to Parliament on 25 February, UK Prime Minister Sir Kier Starmer said “For peace to endure in Ukraine and beyond, we need deterrence,” adding that “a generational challenge requires a generational response.”
The UK announcement comes as European NATO members are seeking to step up commitment to collective European defence and security through increasing national defence spending levels, to reinforce commitment to supporting Ukraine in its war with Russia, to counter continuing global security instability, and to prepare as the new US government sets out its own security position.
The timing of the UK’s announcement is notable, with the Prime Minister set to meet US President Donald Trump in Washington, DC on 27 February. The United States has long led calls for European countries to shoulder a greater proportion of NATO’s defence spending burden.
The UK also is in the advanced stages of conducting a Strategic Defence Review (SDR), a process which began following the country’s General Election in July 2024. The additional GDP spend – up from the current level of 2.3% – will provide an extra GBP13.4 bn to be spent on defence by 2027. This funding will help cement the financial structure underpinning the priorities that SDR will set out, when it is released later in the first half of 2025. The funding will also help accelerate delivery of plans under these priorities.
The UK sees its spending step up as deepening: deterrence against continuing and evolving threats; NATO and European security; and relations with the United States.
In a media press conference, the Prime Minister said the UK had been prompted to take this spending step now for several related reasons, including that the requirement to increase spending had been building for the last three years but had been accelerated in recent weeks, and that the Russo-Ukraine war itself has changed the way war is being fought – meaning the UK armed forces’ capabilities must be adapted.
“I believe we must now change our approach to national security,” the Prime Minister added. “It is a moment where we have to fight for peace, through the action that we take.”
In what could be seen as a switch from ‘soft power’ to hard power’, the UK is funding this defence spending increase by reducing its overseas aid budget. Significant changes in government spending priorities are sometimes required when policy changes, with resources re-distributed to reflect the changed priorities. Governments often refer to defence of the realm and its interests as being their first priority. For the UK, since the Russo-Ukraine war erupted a national-level conversation perhaps has been overdue about the importance of defence and security spending as a relative priority compared to other areas of government spending. Apparent shifts in the balance of matters between Russia, Ukraine, and the United States since the start of 2025 have precipitated this conversation.
For the UK, the shifts in global security and stability are clearly now driving a new approach to defence, with the country now set to spend 2.5% of GDP on defence for the first time in 15 years, in its biggest increase in defence spending since the end of the Cold War.
by Dr. Lee Willett, London
