Why a ship lift would not fix British production

Would an Australian-style ship lift solve the shortage of dry docks and speed British warship production?

No. Britain already has advanced facilities; the larger constraints are mid-career workforce gaps and orders deliberately stretched to keep yards open without buying more ships.

Britain already has ship lifts and technically advanced yards. Its workforce has substantial junior and senior cohorts, with the largest shortage among people with ten to twenty years of experience. Orders provide too little work to sustain rapid construction, so the government pays to spread construction across more years. The rough estimates offered here put spending on the two Queen Elizabeth-class carriers at the equivalent of three and a half carriers, with stretched construction accounting for perhaps 25 to 30 percent of Type 45 costs. These estimates illustrate how preserving industrial continuity through slower building can raise expenditure without adding hulls.