jats:p A novel steel has been designed for use in the oil and gas industry, displaying properties comparable with the currently available F22 grade and possessing the additional quality of excellent hydrogen trapping capacity. Its high strength is derived from a martensitic microstructure containing a dispersion of fine vanadium-molybdenum carbides that evolve during thermal treatments. If the tempering cycle is controlled such that the precipitates maintain a degree of coherency with the matrix, then they act as hydrogen trapping sites, due to the associated strain fields, thus mitigating the problem of diffusible hydrogen. Using material modelling programmes and small-scale sample alloys this work describes the process of the new steel design and demonstrates its superior trapping capacity through thermal desorption analysis. </jats:p>