Royal Ordnance Factory (ROF) Nottingham opened in 1936 in The Meadows, Nottingham, United Kingdom. It was one of a number of Royal Ordnance Factories created in the build up to World War II. During the war the site employed up to four thousand workers. The factory was closed in 2001.

The site that had been used for manufacturing, mainly of arms, since 1916.

Royal Ordnance Factories were the successors to the manufacturing departments of the Ordnance Office.

In the late 1930s, war was seen as a possibility, if not likely, and a sizeable rearmament programme began, probably also activated by the concern that a large proportion of the arsenal was becoming obsolete.

The factory was bought back by the War Office in September 1936, the conveyance (dated 7 May) detailing a sum of £94,475 for the purchase.^{[citation needed]} It was Royal Ordnance Factory Number 23.

Considerable effort was expended in turning the ROF Nottingham into a modern gun factory. The first machine tools were installed in January 1937 and an article in 'Machinery' magazine of 19 January 1939 describes the last machine tools as installed 'a few weeks ago'

Some idea of the scale of the endeavour can be gauged by Nottingham being listed in the ROF accounts for year ending 31 March 1938 as 'under construction'. As of that date, the amount spent on construction and equipment at Nottingham was £1,725,203 (considerably more than the purchase price). A new production facility (the South Shop) was being built at about this time, and roughly 300 people were employed on the reconstruction in 1937. The payroll level had grown to 2,272 people at the end of March 1938, and 3,796 a year later, shortly after the aforementioned 'Machinery' article had described the factory as 'working to capacity'.

World War II was if anything much busier than World War I had been, with the peak employment being said to number 14,000 (a large proportion being women) on two shifts of twelve hours each.^{[citation needed]}