Leonardo in Yeovil: Home of British Helicopters

Leonardo’s Yeovil site is the Home of British Helicopters, having established world-class manufacturing capability over the past century, since the Westland Aircraft Works was established in 1915. During this time, more than 3,300 helicopters have been delivered. The site was built in order to build aircraft to support the First World War effort. The first aircraft built at the Works was a Short 184 seaplane, which left on 1 January 1916, by horse and cart. The fourth ever aircraft built at Westland took part in the Battle of Jutland, piloted by Frederick Rutland from Weymouth, or ‘Rutland of Jutland’ as he became known.

Today, Leonardo Helicopters is based in Yeovil, with over 3,300 employees producing helicopters on site such as the Super Lynx 300, AW159 Wildcat and AW101 Merlin.

Transport links

Yeovil has some excellent road and rail links, and is within an hour’s drive of Exeter and South Wales, a two-hour drive of Heathrow Airport and Birmingham, and 2.5 hours from central London. There are also frequent daily trains to Exeter, Bristol and London Waterloo (2.25 hour journey). The town is also served by four international airports – Bristol, Exeter, Bournemouth and Cardiff – within an hour’s drive.

What the local region offers

One of the great benefits of life in Yeovil is the wealth of attractions and activities that are available nearby.

In the centre of Yeovil is the Quedam Shopping Centre, as well as a ten-screen cinema and bowling alley for entertainment. There are also plenty of restaurants, bars and pubs in the area, with the range of cuisine varying from Italian to Thai and Indian.

Yeovil is set close to the countryside and is within very close distance to plenty of National Trust locations, including Montacute House, Stourhead and Barrington. It is also a few miles from the historic town of Glastonbury, home of myths, legends and the world famous music festival.

Within a 40-minute drive of Yeovil is the Jurassic coast, which is home to a wide selection of beautiful sandy beaches, from Lulworth Cove and Durdle Door to Weymouth and Lyme Regis. It also has close rail links which can get you to Bristol and Bath in under an hour and a half.

Yeovil contact details

Lysander Road, Yeovil, Somerset BA20 2YB
Tel: +44 (0)1935 475222
Fax: +44 (0)1935 702132

Designed, built and supported by Leonardo in the UK, our commercial and military helicopters empower aircrews around the world to enhance operations in defence of our national security and deliver life-saving care when responding to emergency and rescue calls.

Our job opportunities in Yeovil cover a variety of job roles at all levels – from interns and apprentices to highly qualified professionals – including engineers, programme and project managers, IT business analysts and more.

The AW149 is Leonardo's latest generation medium multi-role battlefield platform that delivers the highly effective and survivable capability required by today’s armed forces, combining advanced technologies, equipment and weapons with unparalleled safety and performance characteristics.

To enable our employees to achieve balance between work and other aspects of life, we are committed to designing policies and developing a working environment that promote the benefits and wellbeing of all our employees.

Working at Leonardo opens the door to so many career opportunities, being part of a world-class engineering and manufacturing company.

At Leonardo, we want more amazing people to be part of our world-class team, and are keen for your recruitment journey to be as straightforward and transparent as possible.

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