Babcock International Group said it was awarded a contract from General Dynamics Electric Boat to manufacture 22 tactical missile tube assemblies for the UK Successor and US Ohio Class replacement submarine programmes.

The work on this second phase of the project will be carried out at Babcock’s facilities at Rosyth and Bristol, sustaining around 150 jobs created in the first phase.

The work will start towards the end of 2016 and is expected to be completed in the early 2020s — with further work expected from future batches.

The contract for this batch of “common missile compartment” components is expected to be worth around £80 million.

Babcock chief executive Archie Bethel said: “We are delighted to be continuing to support these internationally significant programmes with our highly specialised and experienced teams and look forward to working closely with our customer as this programme continues to develop further over the coming years.

“Supporting Electric Boat with the CMC project for the future submarines also underpins our wider involvement in the UK Successor programme where we have already secured the supply of other critical equipment and are also heavily involved in the design phase with a focus on the overall through life performance and operational cost of the future platforms.”

UK Defence Minister Harriett Baldwin said: “This contract is a strong endorsement of our highly skilled and globally competitive defence industry and will secure hundreds of jobs in Rosyth.

“With Faslane set to be home of all the Royal Navy’s submarines by 2020, this is further evidence of the benefits that defence brings to the economy and to Scotland.

“It is this kind of British expertise that will see the Successor programme deliver billions of pounds of investment across the UK, sustaining thousands of jobs from Scotland to the South of England.”