III. British nuclear forces

Chapter:

10. World nuclear forces

Source:

SIPRI Yearbook 2022

Author(s):

Hans M. Kristensen, Matt Korda

As of January 2022, the United Kingdom’s nuclear weapon inventory consisted of approximately 225 warheads (see table 10.4)—an unchanged estimate from the previous year. This estimate is based on publicly available information on the British nuclear arsenal and conversations with British officials. The authors consider the British government to have generally been more transparent about its nuclear activities than many other nuclear-armed states—for example, by having declared the size of its nuclear weapon inventory in 2010 and the number of warheads it intends to keep in the future. However, the UK has never declassified the history of its inventory or the actual number of warheads it possesses, and in 2021 declared that it will no longer publicly disclose figures for the country’s operational stockpile, deployed warheads or deployed missile numbers.¹