Hinckley
Town in Leicestershire, England, near Coventry; site of Digital Concepts Engineering's planned first dedicated UGV manufacturing facility.
Digital Concepts Engineering won the British Army's first sizeable uncrewed ground vehicle contract on 1 June 2026 and is opening the UK's first dedicated UGV factory in Hinckley that summer, marking the East Midlands' shift into defence manufacturing.
Last refreshed: 24 July 2026 · Appears in 1 active topic
Can a Leicestershire market town become the hub of Britain's uncrewed ground vehicle industry?
Timeline for Hinckley
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Autonomous Systems: Land & SeaBackground
Hinckley is a market town in south-west Leicestershire, roughly midway between Leicester and Coventry and about 15 miles south-west of Leicester city centre. It is the county's third-largest settlement after Leicester and Loughborough, with a population of around 45,000, and its long industrial history in hosiery and textiles has given way to a diverse manufacturing base served by the A5 and M69.
The town is home to Digital Concepts Engineering (DCE), the robotics company that won the British Army's first sizeable ground-robot contract and builds its X-series Universal Carrier platforms locally. DCE's planned factory would be the first UK site purpose-built for uncrewed ground vehicle production at operational scale.
Hinckley's Emergence as a defence-manufacturing site sits within a wider Midlands corridor of advanced manufacturing running through Leicester and Coventry, alongside established automotive and aerospace supply chains, and reflects the government's push for domestic defence-industrial capacity as part of its rearmament programme.
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Written with AI from Lowdown's published reporting. Not individually reviewed by an editor. Updated 24 July 2026. Editorial standards.