UK launches Project Safari with QinetiQ to open military test ranges to small firms

The UK Ministry of Defence (MOD) and the defence technology company QinetiQ have launched Project Safari, a programme meant to make it easier for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to use the country’s sovereign test and evaluation facilities. The MOD announced it on 10 October 2026.

The stated aim is to get new technologies into service faster. The release names hypersonic missiles, directed energy weapons and autonomous systems among the technologies concerned. It says SMEs, especially those new to defence, have been held back by bureaucracy and several layers of approval.

A single entry point

Under Project Safari, the MOD says, SMEs will get a single entry point and streamlined approvals for trial activity. The programme brings together government, industry, regulators and innovators to simplify access to specialist facilities, modernise infrastructure and reduce unnecessary barriers to decisions.

Luke Pollard, Minister for Defence Readiness and Industry, said that limited access to test and evaluation facilities had been holding back smaller businesses. QinetiQ Group CEO Steve Wadey said that Project Safari will transform how the UK approves new technologies.

MOD Hebrides and SME meetings

During a visit to MOD Hebrides, which the MOD describes as the UK’s largest weapons test range, Pollard signed an agreement with QinetiQ for the first design stage of a multimillion-pound investment. The upgrade is intended to allow testing of hypersonic missiles and other advanced technologies. The release does not give the amount.

Pollard and Wadey also held a roundtable with SME representatives, including Greenjets and Cambridge Aerospace, on the barriers they face in reaching test services. The minister also met MGI Engineering, an Oxfordshire-based SME that is competing in Project Brakestop and developing low-cost long-range weapons for Ukraine.

Policy context

The MOD links the programme to the Strategic Defence Review, which committed the department to raise its spending with SMEs by 2.5 billion pounds a year by summer 2028. It also refers to the Defence Investment Plan, which it says is backed by 298 billion pounds of UK defence funding over the next four years.

No timetable for Project Safari’s rollout and no budget for the programme itself were given in the release.