While France and Russia engage in an increasingly public contest to dominate India’s vast nuclear expansion, one conspicuous absentee from the bidding is Britain. Rolls-Royce, the designer of the UK’s only credible small modular reactor (SMR) programme, and the wider British nuclear ecosystem risk ceding a market of generational importance without even entering the arena.
India’s ambition is unambiguous: 100GW of nuclear capacity by 2047, a twelvefold increase from today’s 8GW, representing roughly €172bn in construction value and several times that figure once fuel, services and life extensions are included. For a British industry desperate to prove that “global Britain” amounts to more than a slogan, this is the single largest civilian nuclear opportunity on earth for the next quarter-century.
Yet Rolls-Royce, having secured £210m of UK government funding in November 2025 and a clear path through the Generic Design Assessment, remains strangely passive. The company’s 470MW pressurised-water SMR is compact, factory-built and designed for exactly the market conditions India now faces: long coastal industrial corridors, constrained grids, difficult land acquisition and a political imperative to localise high-value manufacturing.
India’s requirements read almost as if written for Derby rather than Saint-Petersburg or Paris. Delhi demands 70-80 per cent domestic content within a decade, joint production of forgings and pressure vessels, and the creation of an indigenous supply chain capable of exporting to third countries. Britain, with its decades of operational experience, stringent regulatory culture and unblemished post-Windscale safety record, is uniquely placed to meet those conditions without the geopolitical baggage that now accompanies Russian bids or the protracted cost debates that still shadow France’s EPR offering.
The strategic case is equally compelling. Deepening nuclear co-operation would cement Britain’s role as a serious Indo-Pacific partner at precisely the moment when New Delhi is diversifying away from over-dependence on any single supplier. Unlike Rosatom, Britain carries no sanctions risk; unlike Framatome, it is not tied to a single gigawatt-scale design whose economics remain under scrutiny after Flamanville and Hinkley Point C.
Moreover, the UK SMR is explicitly designed for fleet deployment and rapid replication. India’s planners have already shortlisted concepts in the 200-500MW range and are actively studying high-temperature gas reactors and light-water SMRs. A British entry would instantly broaden Delhi’s technology options and strengthen its bargaining power against the Franco-Russian duopoly.
None of this is charity. Rolls-Royce needs export orders to bring down the “first-of-a-kind” premium that still weighs on its cost curve. A commitment for even 10-15 units in India would transform the investment case for British supply-chain players – Sheffield Forgemasters, Doosan Babcock, Assystem – and create thousands of high-skill jobs in precisely the English regions that backed Brexit and Levelling Up.
The obstacles are real but hardly insuperable. Britain would need to accelerate its SMR regulatory timeline, offer attractive export-finance terms through UKEF, and signal willingness to establish a major manufacturing joint-venture on Indian soil from day one. AUKUS has already demonstrated that London and Washington can move with uncharacteristic speed when the strategic stakes are clear; India merits no less urgency.
Time is short. Russian and French delegations shuttle regularly between Mumbai and New Delhi; site surveys and framework agreements are advancing. If Britain continues to treat the Indian market as an afterthought, it will wake up in 2035 to discover that the world’s fastest-growing nuclear programme is powered predominantly by VVERs and EPRs, with British engineers reduced to the margins.
Ministers and the Rolls-Royce board must recognise that India is not merely another export market. It is the decisive battleground on which the future viability of Western nuclear technology will be determined. Absent a bold British bid, the field will be left to players whose strategic priorities do not necessarily align with an open, rules-based energy order.
Britain spent decades lamenting its retreat from civilian nuclear leadership. Here, finally, is a chance to reverse that decline – and to do so in partnership with the world’s largest democracy. Missing this opportunity would be unforgivable.
