Job cuts will affect engineering, manufacturing and business support areas of BAE Systems.

International aerospace company BAE Systems has announced it is to cut almost 600 jobs at two of its UK military factories.

The world’s third largest global defence company said it plans to axe 134 jobs at its Woodford site, near Manchester, whilst 450 jobs will go at Brough, near Hull.

Staff working in engineering, manufacturing and business support will be affected by the move.

BAE has described the job cuts as “regrettable” and said it had sought and identified additional work packages at its Brough site, however they were not “sufficient to sustain the current number of jobs.”

The company said the transition plan will provide an opportunity to create longer-term stability for the site and will reduce its dependency on the Hawk jet trainer.

At Woodford, BAE said the job cuts followed a review of the engineering capabilities required within the Military Air Solutions business. This indicated that engineering workloads would reduce as products move from design and development into the support phase, the company said. Those involved on the Nimrod MRA4 programme will not be affected.

A BAE representative commented on the redundancies: “We recognise that this is a difficult period for all employees and their families and we will continue to do everything practical to mitigate the number of compulsory job losses”.

By Natasha Piscitelli