The submarines will be designed and predominantly constructed in Barrow securing the shipyards long term future even beyond Vanguard. Barrow is one of Britain's few planned towns, and the spacious tree-lined avenues within the oldest parts of the town (including Central Barrow, Hindpool and Salthouse) are more akin to the layout of a much larger city. There are also an increasing number of modern office buildings as well as the shipyard's construction halls which dominate much of Barrow's skyline.

The Barrows is an empty town just outside the walls of the Barrows brothers' graves, in southern Morytania. It was expanded in 1986 by construction of a new covered assembly facility, the Devonshire Dock Hall (DDH), completed by Alfred McAlpine, on land that was created by infilling part of the Devonshire Dock with 2. Technical and professional qualifications are delivered at the Channelside campus, with A' levels delivered at the Rating Lane campus, the home of the former sixth form college.The town is considered one of rugby league's traditional heartlands at semi-professional and amateur levels. The coasts around Barrow have rich cockle beds from which cockles have traditionally been gathered, although numbers have been low following intensive gathering during the early 2000s, in the run-up to the 2004 Morecambe Bay cockling disaster. Barrow's industry continued to supply the war effort, with Winston Churchill visiting the town on one occasion to launch the aircraft carrier HMS Indomitable.

Despite much of Barrow having been constructed from the late 19th to mid 20th centuries, architectural styles vary greatly across the town from the Art Deco John Whinnerah Institute to the Byzantine style St. In 2021 Max Davies was selected for Team GB again as was fellow 'Barrovian' Daniel Pepper after Pepper had finished that years British championship in 2nd with Davies placing in 3rd. The DDH provides a controlled environment for ship and submarine assembly, and avoids the difficulties caused by building on the slope of traditional slipways.Between 2004 and 2010 Barrow was home to one of North West England's largest nightclubs, the 2,500-capacity Blue Lagoon occupied the entire hull of the former Danish ferry Princess Selandia, which has now left the town.