Rolls-Royce plans to invest £300m on four facilities and about £180m on two research programmes in the UK to cope with the growth in its aerospace market.

The two factories will manufacture advanced turbine blade castings for high-thrust engines and discs used in fans, compressors and turbines.

Rolls-Royce will also extend one of its UK facilities to build wide chord fan blades for military purposes, specifically for supporting its engine production for the F-35 joint strike fighter programme.

A civil nuclear factory will also be established by the company.

The research programmes will focus on technologies to reduce the CO2 emissions of future aircraft and accelerate the development of new manufacturing methods particularly looking at the environmental and productivity aspects.

The UK Government will provide a total £45m support for the factories and £73.5m for the research.

Another £11.5m will be provided by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council for manufacturing processes research.