UKAEA’s mission – to lead the delivery of sustainable fusion energy and maximise the scientific and economic benefits – is a broad and long-term endeavour. The UK government is providing record levels of funding for UKAEA’s programmes and activities in view of those scientific and economic benefits, both short and long-term. Those programmes aim ultimately to build a UK fusion sector with the breadth of capability required to deliver those long-term benefits.
What are we aiming for?
The long-term benefits we are aiming for include:
- inward investment
- high quality jobs and growth
- global scientific leadership, collaboration and influence
- the UK as a skills magnet
- a UK developed clean and secure energy solution
- market shaping capability
- the UK as a global hub for fusion demonstration
- value generation across the UK supply chain
- thriving high-tech SMEs
The UK fusion energy sector capabilities we are developing include:
- foundational research and skills
- supply chain technology innovation
- industrial-scale systems capability and capacity
- power plant integration and delivery
How we are performing
UK jobs in fusion
Between 2020/21 and 2024/25, an average of 6,000 jobs per year were supported in the UK economy by UKAEA activity, 60% of which were in the UK supply chain rather than working directly for UKAEA.
UK skills growth
By 2025, UKAEA’s FOSTER programme supported 31 PhDs, secured partnerships with 2 leading UK universities to expand Masters-level training for fusion energy in the UK, engaged nearly 50,000 school students through outreach activities, and started a new collaboration with the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) at the
Oxfordshire Advanced Skills facility, with 16 apprentices in the first cohort.
UK scientific and research achievements
In financial years 2022/23 to 2024/25, UKAEA increased its scholarly output by 11% compared to financial years 2019/20 to 2021/22. UKAEA researcher attendance at conferences nearly doubled over that same time period. 51 PhD students started during 2024/25 from 19 universities.
UK value generation
Via intellectual property and know-how, UKAEA’s research and innovation is increasingly generating value in the UK economy. Since 2019, UKAEA has submitted 166 invention disclosures and filed 27 patents, including 14 from the Spherical Tokamak for Energy Production (STEP) programme. These cover a wide range of technologies, from remountable superconducting magnets and advanced tritium handling systems to novel robotic platforms and repair methods for next-generation materials. The number of identified economic sectors into which UKAEA’s fusion technologies could be applied doubled between 2021 and 2024.
Commercial and inward investment into UK fusion
UKAEA is increasing commercial and foreign investment into its programmes and activities. UKAEA received £9.5M of direct commercial investment during 2024/25 and agreed a commercial partnership with Italian multinational energy firm Eni to build the H3AT facility.
UK fusion energy research and development
UKAEA uses different approaches to evaluate realisation of these benefits. Quantitative analysis undertaken by UKAEA and DESNZ suggests that the gross value-added (GVA) impact of UKAEA fusion energy research and development activities between 2009 and and 2025 was £3.4 billion, with UK government spend of £2 billion over the same period.1
1 GVA and UK government funding in 2024/25 prices, direct and indirect effects only.
The amount of GVA for every £1 in UK government funding has reduced compared to the London Economics analysis undertaken in 2020 because between 2009/10 and 2023/24 the amount of UK government funding has increased in relation to external funding, primarily that received from the European Commission to operate the Joint European Torus (which ceased operations in 2023).
Case studies
We publish case studies of our work. Here are the latest:
