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Shipbuilder Harland and Wolff has secured six maintenance and fabrication contracts worth more than £10m.

The maritime engineering company, known for its famous Belfast shipyard where the Titanic was built, said the deals were with unnamed clients operating in the defence, cruise and ferry and commercial fabrication sectors.

The group said it would carry out the work at its sites in Northern Ireland, Scotland and the Appledore shipyard in Devon over the next year-and-a-half.

Harland and Wolff confirmed it would be fabricating a frame at its Appledore facility for a “prime contractor” as part of its ongoing defence programme.

The Aim-listed firm added its workers in Belfast would manufacture a drydock gate for a client that operates a defence facility, repair a jack up barge used for the installation of offshore structures, as well as regular maintenance work on a product tanker and four ferries.

Meanwhile the company's teams in Arnish on the North West coast of Scotland will undertake construction works for a mining project.

It comes as the company prepares for the start of a £1.6bn, seven-year contract to deliver three ships for the Royal Navy later this year. Harland and Wolff is part of a consortium delivering the vessels for the navy, with its share of the deal worth £700m to £800m throughout the life of the programme

Group chief executive John Wood said the company was seeing an “uptick” in the level of enquiries at all its yards since the start of the year.