RC Fornax [LON:RCFX], the AIM-quoted defence engineering consultancy, has entered its new financial year with the strongest trading performance in its history, a sign that the recent shifts in UK defence priorities are beginning to translate into material contract flows for smaller, technically specialised suppliers.
For the three months to the end of November, the company secured total orders (new mandates plus extensions) worth about £2.5mn, an increase of more than 70 per cent year-on-year. New orders alone reached roughly £2.2mn, up more than 180 per cent on the same period last year and more than twelvefold higher than the previous quarter.
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For a business that has spent the past year sharpening its operating model and bidding discipline, the quarter marks a turning point: the strongest inflow of work since listing and a meaningful expansion of its customer base.
What’s driving revenues at RC Fornax?
The surge is attributed partly to the UK’s Strategic Defence Review, which has refocused spending priorities on platform availability, sovereign resilience and the integration of novel technologies, all areas that favour the sort of outcome-based engineering in which RC Fornax specialises. It is also the product of internal reforms. Over the past five months the company has strengthened governance, delivery oversight and risk management, allowing it to respond more quickly to tenders and detect project risks earlier. The operational refresh appears to be paying off.
The company has added three new clients since the start of FY26 and has continued to win follow-on work from existing accounts. The uplift in activity, it says, provides improved revenue visibility for the rest of the financial year and should translate into extensions and further phases as programmes mature.
Participation across seven procurement frameworks, often the main gateway for defence and public-sector work, is beginning to generate more material opportunities, particularly as buyers emphasise speed, integration and flexibility.
Major public sector space client
The most strategically significant addition to RC Fornax’s order book came via a public announcement late in November: its first major UK public-sector space client, secured through a competitive tender. The initial contract, worth around £370,000 over six months, is modest in isolation but important in what it signals. The company was selected as lead contractor and systems integrator for a consortium of UK and European SMEs and academic partners, an endorsement of its ability to coordinate highly specialised teams across borders.
For an SME, being appointed integrator is commercially and reputationally valuable. Defence and space frameworks have historically been dominated by large primes and global consultancies. RC Fornax’s inclusion and, more strikingly, its position at the helm of a multi-party consortium, suggests buyers are increasingly willing to back smaller engineering firms with deep technical credibility.
The contract’s framework structure creates scope for follow-on phases and recurring revenue, while the company’s retention of full intellectual-property rights gives it a strategic asset that can be commercialised beyond the initial engagement.
That IP ownership may prove the most consequential feature. It allows RC Fornax to build a portfolio of deployable technologies rather than rely solely on time-bound engineering mandates. Such optionality is uncommon for a consultancy of its scale and could support higher-margin licensing or productisation if the underlying technology proves transferable.
RC Fornax is well-positioned for public sector procurement
The space-sector win also strengthens the company’s position for future public-sector frameworks, bolstering its credentials in adjacent high-assurance sectors where similar engineering disciplines apply. For a firm seeking to scale, this matters: UK public-sector procurement channels billions of pounds annually into defence, space and security programmes, but suppliers frequently need a track record within frameworks before meaningful work becomes accessible.
The company’s leadership argues that these developments, combined with proceeds from its recent fundraise, will support accelerated development of its Procure X and Smart Suite platforms, both designed to improve capability sourcing and delivery across defence. The systems aim to tackle long-standing inefficiencies in procurement cycles and, if successful, could embed RC Fornax deeper into the digital backbone of the UK defence supply chain.
RC Fornax: What we think
Confidentiality constraints, a perennial feature of defence contracts, limit the volume of news flow the company can generate. But the numbers tell their own story: a record quarter, a broadened client base, and a strategically important public-sector win that enhances long-term positioning.
RC Fornax still needs to demonstrate that the early momentum of FY26 can be sustained. Yet the combination of order growth, clearer strategic direction and growing credibility within key frameworks offers grounds for confidence. For a company built around outcome-based engineering and SME integration, the year has begun with unusual clarity: more work, more visibility and more leverage to scale.
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