BY any measure, the UK’s trade in weapons is sizable – with the country being rated as the seventh-largest exporter of arms in the world.

It is however tricky to say exactly how much Britain’s arms trade is worth, partly because there is no internationally agreed definition of the term or how they should be measured.

The UK Defence and Security Exports (DSE) section of the Department for Business and Trade says that defence orders – which include the value of orders won by UK companies for export of defence services, support and equipment to foreign militaries – peaked in 2018 at £16.0 billion, in 2023 prices.

In 2022, this stood at £12bn, up by £4.6bn on the previous year due to new contracts in the Middle East and Europe, and exports of helicopters to Canada.

Over the last five years, the average real value of defence exports was £11.5bn.

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This is up from £10.9 billion per year over the last 10 years and £9.3 billion per year over the last 35 years.

The Middle East is the largest market for arms exports – accounting for 34% in 2022.

Ukraine – the UK Government committed military assistance to Ukraine worth £2.3bn in 2022 and said it would match this in 2022.

But figures relating to British spending on Ukraine are not reflected in overall totals because much of this has been gifted by the UK Government to Ukraine.

What are we selling to the world?

Mostly things that fly, with 68% of defence exports are in the aerospace sector.

Land and sea exports account for 6% and 5% respectively – the remainder do not fit clearly into any category.

Standard Individual Export Licences (SIELs) are used to approve shipments of a specified quantity of items to clients. Their issue has grown by 35% since 2008.

For military items most of these were for aircraft, plane components and “related equipment”, then comes firearms followed by vehicles.

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Bombs represent the lowest amount of licences granted. In 2022, the total value of SIELs issued was £70.6bn. Around £9.1bn (13%) was for military goods and £61.4bn (87%) for non-military goods.

How does the UK compare internationally?

Estimates by the DSE say the USA is the largest exporter of arms, far ahead of France and Germany which come in second and third place, respectively.

The US is estimated to export arms and other military kit, training and services worth in excess of $250bn.

According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute’s arms transfers database, the UK represents 3.2% of the global arms trade.

You can find out more here.