The United Kingdom tested its first nuclear weapon ( " Hurricane " ) in 1952 . The UK had provided considerable impetus and initial research for the early conception of the atomic bomb , aided by Austrian , German and Polish physicists working at British universities who had either fled or decided not to return to Nazi Germany or Nazi controlled territories . The UK collaborated closely with the United States and Canada during the Manhattan Project , but had to develop its own method for manufacturing and detonating a bomb as U.S. secrecy grew after 1945 . The United Kingdom was the third country in the world , after the United States and Soviet Union , to develop and test a nuclear weapon . Its programme was motivated to have an independent deterrent against the Soviet Union , while also maintaining its status as a great power . It tested its first hydrogen bomb in 1957 ( Operation Grapple ) , making it the third country to do so after the United States and Soviet Union . The UK maintained a fleet of V bomber strategic bombers and ballistic missile submarines ( SSBNs ) equipped with nuclear weapons during the Cold War . It currently maintains a fleet of four ' Vanguard ' class ballistic missile submarines equipped with Trident II missiles . In 2016 , the UK House of Commons voted to renew the British nuclear weapons system with the '' Dreadnought '' - class submarine , without setting a date for the commencement of service of a replacement to the current system
Hurricane
Operation Hurricane
List of states with nuclear weapons