Fourteen years to design and build and costing around a billion pounds, nuclear submarine the Astute is one of the most technologically advanced and controversial machines in the world. For over a year the BBC filmed its construction inside one of the most secure and secret places in the country. The film features many of the workers including Erin Browne, a 19-year-old apprentice electrician who wires up the boat; Commander Paul Knight, responsible for the safety of the nuclear reactor; and Derek Parker, whose job involves moving massive pieces of the submarine that weigh hundreds of tons into position before the welding team join them together. Computer graphics go inside the construction of the submarine itself, giving a blueprint of the design, the life-support systems and weaponry. They also help to illustrate the areas that could not be filmed due to national security. The story takes a dramatic turn when an unforeseen event means the submarine has to sail into the open sea for the first time during one of the wettest and windiest weekends of the year.

As Boeing's new 787 Dreamliner makes its inaugural flight, Rolls-Royce engineers celebrate the performance of its revolutionary Trent 1000 jet engines. They're the latest in a family of sophisticated aero engines that have driven Rolls-Royce to become world leaders in the market for jumbo jet engines. This is the story of the thousands of people who design, build and test engines at Rolls-Royce's manufacturing plants in Derby and across the UK, making Rolls-Royce a central part of life for the people who work there. Exploring some of the astonishing technology behind the engines' advanced components, the programme meets the skilled engineers who design and build them, and experience the ups and downs of life on the assembly line.

If you need to build a 'top-secret' piece of equipment in the UK, there's one place many people choose to go: defence contractor QinetiQ. We follow workers at this leading British company on a global journey, as they reveal a handful of their secretive projects. We meet the scientists and engineers building robots to defuse Afghanistan's deadly roadside bombs and learn how they're adapting them to help in dangerous civilian situations in the UK. We find out how British experts are using 'stealth technology' to make wind turbines less visible to radar and, with unprecedented access, we follow the engineers racing to get Chinook helicopters ready for front line service, including Afghanistan.