Space tech titan Raytheon will relocate HQ to Arlington

The latest big tech company to make the DMV its home is none other than aerospace and defense giant Raytheon Technologies.

The 174,000-person company announced in a statement Tuesday that it would be relocating its corporate headquarters from the Boston, Massachusetts area to Arlington, Virginia. Raytheon Intelligence and Space (I&S), its space and intelligence tech arm, is already located in Arlington, and each of its four business units has operations in the state. It also boasts other Virginia outposts in Dulles, Springfield, Falls Church, Virginia Beach, Chantilly and Herndon.

The new HQ, company spokesperson Chris Johnson told Technical.ly, will be a slight expansion of the company’s existing space next to the Intelligence and Space outpost. The move is expected to be complete in the third quarter, and the company will be maintaining its 600 facilities across the US.

Johnson declined to share more about the company’s reasons for relocating, but a statement from Raytheon said that the location will increase the company’s “agility” in supporting US government and commercial customers. It also noted that DC is a convenient travel hub for its global work, as well as that the company can reinforce some of its industry partnerships.

Raytheon has said that it doesn’t expect the move will generate any new jobs in the area. That said, the announcement follows the company’s recent huge talent search in the DMV. In November, Raytheon Intelligence and Space said it would be adding 400 positions for technologists in Northern Virginia. And in April, John DeSimone, Raytheon I&S’s president of cybersecurity, intelligence and services said that it planned to add 1,500 cyber and engineering professionals in 2022.

“From a business perspective, we’ve got some of the best talent, best experience and passion to deliver for those who keep us safe,” Doug Greene, senior director of talent acquisition at Raytheon I&S, told Technical.ly last fall. “With that, the DMV/security corridor is a hotbed for talent, and it’s time that we leverage that even more than we do today.”

Raytheon also clarified that the move was not supplemented by any financial incentives from the state or municipality in making the move. So far this year, the Virginia Jobs Investment Program, a state entity, has added nearly 400 tech jobs in NoVA by encouraging growth from companies such as Virongy, Bode Technology and Alarm.com.

Raytheon is just the latest company that relocated its headquarters to DC, Maryland and Northern Virginia. In May, fellow aerospace company Boeing announced that it would be moving HQ from Chicago, Illinois to Arlington. And, following Amazon’s HQ2 announcement in 2018, companies including Cloudpermit, Starkist Tuna and Infrascale all announced new NoVA headquarters.