Audacious and Malta classes formed the next carrier steps

What was the planned replacement for surviving Royal Navy wartime armored carriers?

Audacious-class ships followed by Malta-class plans, with later requirements eventually producing CVA concepts.

The answer sketches a succession of carrier requirements rather than one direct one-for-one replacement. The Audacious class provides the immediate postwar step beyond the surviving armored carriers. Malta represents the large wartime carrier the Royal Navy wanted but did not complete. Later CVA designs carry the same need for a modern fleet carrier into a different technological and political era, so the replacement path is best understood as continuing institutional demand interrupted by cancellations and changing resources.