A major jobs boost and work worth millions of pounds are on the way to the south as the region prepares to help build the UK's next generation of aircraft carrier.

The south's role in the multi-billion-pound government project will make one of the biggest impacts on the local defence sector seen in recent years.

Exact details of the huge employment and cash injection into Hampshire's economy will be revealed when Southampton-based Vosper Thornycroft (VT) unveils its part in the carrier construction tomorrow.

The VT Group is one of the players in a new strategy which will see it working alongside former rivals Swan Hunter, Babcock BES and BAE Systems on the new ships.

Although VT is beginning to run down its long-established shipyard in Woolston and move production to Portsmouth next year, work generated by the aircraft carrier programme will benefit the whole of the region.

Under Ministry of Defence plans, expertise in the south will be pivotal to the design and build of two carrier vessels that will form the heart of the nation's front-line defence in the decades to come.

The Ministry of Defence is to spend about £13 billion on the two carriers - the largest warships the Royal Navy has ever had - and their on-board aircraft.

Each weighing more than 50,000 tonnes, the carriers are due to enter service in 2012 and 2015. They will give the UK the capability to mount military operations anywhere in the world and will cope with increasingly heavy demands being placed on the armed forces.

The jet the government wants to be the backbone of the carrier force is the British and American Joint Strike Fighter, the world's most advanced supersonic vertical take-off aircraft.

With a crew of 600 the carriers will be large enough to hold a further 1,400 servicemen and women.