Defence specialist ‘ready to scale’ after record year

A Yorkshire defence engineering specialist has almost doubled turnover during a record year, alongside securing £1.5 million of contracts with two new clients.

Shipley-based Slipstream Design, which employs 27 people, recorded double-digit growth during its 2025-26 financial year.

The digital and radio frequency specialist says its progress has been supported by its participation in NATO’s Defence Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic (DIANA) programme.

Slipstream was one of 28 UK companies selected for the initiative, which concluded in June and helped accelerate routes to market for its ASTRO compact wideband configurable radio platform.

Commercial director Sarah Gregory said: “We have always set ourselves ambitious growth targets, and expansion at this scale is never down to just one thing.

“The progress we’ve seen this year is a result of our consistency in customer delivery over the years and investing in our team in the same period, coupled with the opportunities resulting from the NATO DIANA accelerator programme.”

“In just two years, ASTRO™’s capabilities have advanced significantly.

“We have moved on from debuting demonstrations of agile switching between complex waveforms, multi-waveform synchronisation and RF spectrum capture and processing using SigMF.

“We now have a high-performance, software-defined RF module that allows an end user to adapt its function depending on the contested and congested radio environment.”

Founded in 2011, the business operates across radar, critical communications and signal intelligence, working with technology start-ups and defence companies including BAE Systems and Leonardo UK, alongside government and military projects.

Sarah added: “We have spent 15 years laying the right foundations.

“We have made the investments, we have deployed the technology, and now we are ready to scale.”

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