Soaring demand for a bomb-disposal robot called Talon in Iraq has helped QinetiQ, the defence research company, to post a strong increase in profits despite a slowdown in British defence spending.

However, the defence group is preparing to cut 400 administrative and support jobs across the UK as part of a reorganisation that will see more than a100 separate business units merged into four divisions.

The defence company which has been seeing strong growth in its US business said that it would reorganise its Europe, Middle East and Australasia division, leading to a £30 to £35 million charge in the second half of the year. Putting the division into four larger units focused on managed services, technology solutions, consulting and products is expected to improve operating profit by £10 million a year.

Graham Love, chief executive, said that the reorganisation would put the company in a stronger position to address growth markets and eliminate duplicate overheads. "It is not clear who will go yet, but we will run a restructuring and redundancy programme," Mr Love said. The company said that it still intended to be a net recruiter of scientists over the year - taking on about 400.

"We are restructuring this business so that we can accelerate the growth. We are certainly upskilling the organisation," Mr Love said. QinetiQ has also established a venture fund within its own business, with a dedicated executive team, which will aim to exploit QinetiQ's successful research more aggressively.

Building on the success of the emerging US business, QinetiQ also wants to accelerate the growth of its business units in Australia, where it has won its first contracts and the Middle East.

QinetiQ, which was floated on the stock exchange last year, said that underlying operating profit rose by 34.5 per cent to £46 million, with organic growth of 21.6 per cent in the six months ended 30 September.

Pre-tax profits rose by 9.3 per cent to £25.9 million.

QinetiQ was last week the subject of a National Audit Office report which criticised the way it was partially sold in 2003 to Carlyle, the US-based private equity group. The NAO was also high critical of an incentive scheme devised at the time of the sale, which led to senior executives achieving a 19,900 per cent return on their investment in shares in the business, when it was floated in 2006.

QinetiQ said today that it had seen a 12.9 per cent increase in orders won in the first six months of the year, up to £592.2 million. Revenue from North America, where the company has been focusing, has increased by 54.8 per cent to £256.6 million, with organic growth of 24 per cent.

The outlook for QinetiQ in its core UK market is mixed, with strong prospects in areas such as managed services offsetting pressures caused by continuing strains on the UK defence budget. Although defence spending is being cut, QinetiQ believes it can withstand the pressures as much of its technology is applied to improve equipment that is already in use by the armed forces.

Talon, now the best-selling bomb disposal robot in the world, achieved more than $175 million dollars of new orders in the first half of the year, leading to a strong increase in demand for spare parts for the robot which is heavily used in Iraq and Afghanistan.

US troops are evaluating a new version of the robot, called Sword, which can be equipped with a machine gun for use in raids on suspected enemy compounds, where there is a high risk of ambush or booby trap.

The robot, which can climb stairs and negotiate rock piles, is operated by soldiers using a laptop, complete with joystick controls and a "kill button'' that stops the machine if a problem occurrs.

QinetiQ added that its underlying full-year performance was likely to be at the upper end of expectations due to a strong performance and forward order visibility in its Qinetiq North America business, together with a lower tax cost.

The company has raised its interim dividend by 10.8 per cent to 1.33p.

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