Two open-source developments confirm that GNSS denial is now treated as a permanent planning factor at national level, and that the response is being built.
In November 2025 the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology committed £155m to harden the UK's positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) infrastructure. The breakdown: £71m to begin a national enhanced Long-Range Navigation (eLoran) programme, £68m for a National Timing Centre led by the National Physical Laboratory, £13m for GNSS interference monitoring, and £3m for space-based time-transfer research. The driver is stated plainly — jamming and spoofing risk heightened since Russia's invasion of Ukraine, plus natural threats such as solar activity. The framework cites research estimating a 24-hour satellite-navigation outage could cost the UK economy around £1.4bn.
eLoran matters because it is terrestrial and low-frequency: high-power ground signals that are far harder to jam or spoof than space-based GNSS. On 7 May 2026 the MoD awarded a £6m contract to QinetiQ-led Team Elaris (with UrsaNav, Roke and GMV) under a two-year programme called Urgent Compass, to produce a deployable eLoran solution concept — one that can be moved into contested locations worldwide where GPS is denied. It is designed to feed later demonstration and production phases.
**What it means for operators.** The state-level signal is the practitioner lesson: do not plan movement on the assumption that GPS will be there. Resilient PNT is years from being something you carry, but the principle transfers down to the team now. Carry and rehearse map-and-compass navigation. Pre-load offline mapping. Brief crews on the signatures of jamming and spoofing — a position that jumps, freezes, or places you somewhere impossible — and on what to do when the blue dot lies. Treat satellite positioning as a convenience that can be removed, in a hostile environment or, increasingly, near one. The institutions are building the backstop; on the ground, the backstop is still your own drills.
