A defence manufacturing company has opened the largest factory built in London since the Second World War.
Isembard opened its new headquarters and factory on the site of a former council car pound in Southwark. The building on Mandela Way in Bermondsey is four storeys high and covers 160,000-square-feet.
The company manufactures precision components for companies including Anduril, Babcock and Tekever, which make products including drones, robotics, missiles and jet engines.
The Southwark site currently employs 35 people, with the company saying it aims to have 200 employees across production, software, manufacturing and robotics automation engineering by the end of 2027.
Isembard founder and CEO Alexander Fitzgerald said, “Manufacturing is the origin of our security, prosperity and sense of purpose as nations.
“No one has opened a factory like this in London since the Second World War, and that tells you how far our industrial base has been allowed to shrink. Bringing production back onshore is the work of the next decade.”
The opening comes as the Government increases investment in defence manufacturing, with £50 million of a wider £298 billion investment plan over the next four years set to help start-ups and small and medium-sized businesses enter the defence supply chain.
The Government’s Defence Investment Plan, published in June 2026, said the investment would help the UK “move to warfighting readiness, back British jobs and businesses, and show UK leadership and step up European security.”
The factory is located close to central London, with the company saying the site will allow it to access the capital’s technology workforce.
Southwark has a long history of industry, including gasworks, tanneries and railway yards. Engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel, after whom the company is named, worked on the famous Thames Tunnel in nearby Rotherhithe.
Featured image credit: Isembard
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