In recent years if someone asked where Rolls-Royce Holdings (LSE: RR.) shares were likely go next, if you’d just said further up, you’d have been on the money.
But that changed in 2026. The share price has been up and down so far this year — but has gone nowhere overall.
These are potentially nervous times for growth share investors. Has the skyrocketing share price — up 1,030% in five years — finally come to a halt and is ready to fall back? Or is this just a pause with a lot more to come? Let’s check in with City forecasts.
What do broker recommendations say?
The first couple of weeks of May have brought a couple of interesting updates from analysts.
Berenberg has issued a neutral Hold on the stock. It did, however, upgrade its price target from 1,250p to 1,270p — 8.5% ahead of the price at the time of writing. But these targets are always short term. And Rolls-Royce shares have been a fair bit higher — and lower — than that over the past couple of months.
AlphaValue has a Reduce tag on Rolls, which isn’t exactly a shining recommendation. And the 1,264p target is again within the range of recent random noise.
You know what this sounds like to me? It makes me think analysts are just as split between ‘set to fly higher’ and ‘poised for a fall’ as I am.
Rolls-Royce in transition
Much of the uncertainty, I suspect, stems from one key thing. That’s the question of how Rolls is going to transition from being largely based on its aero engines business. In 2025, 75% of the company’s revenue came from the Civil Aerospace and Defence segments.
What’s it expanding to? Rolls’ Power Systems is the one hitting the headlines. That’s all about the company’s small modular reactors (SMRs). And the new Wylfa power station on Anglesey will be home to a fleet of them, starting with an initial three.
The Power Systems order book stands at over £7bn now, which is impressively rapid progress. And the business brought in £4.9bn revenue in 2025 — still relatively low, but with the potential to grow quickly. But working out valuations based on that is hard.
What might the next few years hold?
Here’s what broker forecasts predict, following 2025 results…
| Year | 2025 | 2026 | 2027 | 2028 |
| Revenue (£m) | 20,059 | 22,550 | 24,800 | 27,350 |
| Earnings per share (p) | 69.41* | 37.6 | 43.5 | 51.4 |
| Price-to-earnings | 17.0 | 30.8 | 26.6 | 22.5 |
(*Adjusted 2025 EPS = 29.44p). Sources: Company reports, MarketScreener.
We have management guidance of £4.0bn to £4.2bn underlying operating profit in 2026, with free cash flow between £3.6bn and £3.8bn. And beyond that, analysts presumably base their figures on their own industry and sector analysis. But when the medium-term future of civil and defence aviation is so unpredictable, the error bars in such estimates surely have to be huge.
So, will Rolls-Royce shares reach £15 next, or slump below £10? I can’t guess any better than 50/50, and I don’t gamble on odds like that. I just see stocks on less risky valuations that I’m considering well ahead of Rolls-Royce today. But if the shares do fall…
Alan Oscroft does not hold any positions in the companies mentioned.
