Great Britain’s Defense Secretary signed a three billion pound deal to build the biggest warships in the Royal Navy's history, BBC reported.

The project will create or maintain as much as 10,000 British jobs when the work begins, said Defense Secretary Des Browne.

The two carriers - named HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales – will each weight 65,000 tones, making them the biggest and most powerful ever constructed. Each carrier will be the equivalent in size of the Queen Elizabeth II ocean liner. Their capacity will be of 1,450 crew and 40 planes and their flight decks will be the size of three football pitches.

The signing of the deal, which was done aboard the HMS Ark Royal in Portsmouth, was described by Browne as “a historic day for everyone in defense."

"Today's contract signing seals the future for thousands of jobs, and ensures that we will have a Royal Navy fit for the 21st century," the Defense Secretary added.

The HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales will be manufactured by a
conglomerate of companies which includes a joint venture between two British companies, BAE Systems and VT Group. Babcock International Group and Thales were also involved in the historic project and they designed the new ships.

The huge 280 meter-long carriers will be built in shipyards in Barrow-in-Furness, Glasgow, Portsmouth and Rosyth, where the construction process will create more than 2,000 jobs in the shipbuilding industry.

The HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales are due in service in 2014 and 2016.