UK Defence Secretary John Healey launched the UK Labour government’s Defence Industrial Strategy on 2 December 2024, inviting investors, innovators, industry and trade unions to give their views on how to grow a better, more integrated, more innovative and more resilient UK defence sector.
Speaking at a London Defence Conference event with investors in the City London, Healey set an ambition to increase defence sector jobs in “every nation and region of the UK”, noting that a strong defence sector can help provide “the foundation for a decade of national renewal”.
“With global threats increasing, the government’s Defence Industrial Strategy will place deterrence at the heart of a new approach, to ensure adversaries know the UK has an industrial base that can innovate at a wartime pace,” the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) stated in a press release the same day.
The Defence Industrial Strategy is intended to make the defence sector an engine for UK growth and strengthen domestic supply chains in critical areas, such as semi-conductors and steel. The new government has already invested in the acquisition of a defence semiconductor factory in County Durham. The new strategy will show how public investment and long-term certainty can help generate billions in private investment into UK Defence and “mobilise the private sector to help face down global threats”, according to the MoD.
In co-ordinated moves to support this approach, 2 December saw BAE Systems announce it is recruiting for more than 2,400 new apprentice, undergraduate and graduate roles in 2025, which will result in a record number of 6,500 staff – around 15% of its UK workforce – in training. BAE stated that an anticipated GBP 230 million (EUR 277 million) investment in education and skills next year will take the total amount it has spent on upskilling people across the UK since 2020 to beyond GBP 1 billion.
Similarly, on 3 December Babcock International announced it will create almost 1,500 new apprentice and graduate roles over the course of 2024 and 2025. Following a record-breaking intake this year of more than 400 apprentices, Babcock will induct a further 500 apprentices into the group through its recently launched recruitment programme. These early career hires will be further supplemented by 253 graduate roles in 2025, following on from the 285 graduates that joined Babcock in September 2024.
On 22 November, meanwhile, Rolls-Royce Submarines opened a new office in Glasgow, funded by the UK MoD, that will create over 100 new jobs in Scotland. The new starters there will support the UK’s Dreadnought submarine programme and other growth in demand from the Royal Navy, including work in support of the UK’s trilateral AUKUS security agreement with Australia and the United States.
The UK’s relatively new Labour government is thus seeking to address some of the UK’s past problems that have held back growth in the defence sector, including inefficient spending, skills shortages, and a lack of focus on exports and long-term partnerships.
At the centre of the strategy is the government’s growth mission, designed to bring benefits to every region and nation in the UK. The defence sector already supports one in 60 jobs in the UK – “434,000 good, well-paid jobs, with the majority (67%) outside London and the Southeast”, the MoD noted.
“Our defence sector should be an engine for jobs and growth, strengthening our security and economy,” stated Healey on launching the new Defence Industrial Strategy. “That requires a defence industry that is better and more integrated: one that can keep our armed forces equipped, innovating at a wartime pace, and ahead of our adversaries.
“We will develop this new Defence Industrial Strategy with industry, with innovators and with workers,” he added. “We will mobilise the private sector to help face down global threats, direct more public investment to British businesses and create jobs and growth in every nation and region of the UK.
“National security is the foundation for national stability and growth. We are sending a signal to the market and to our adversaries: with a strong UK defence sector we will make Britain secure at home and strong abroad.”
Kevin Craven, CEO of ADS Group, the industry body that represents the UK aerospace, defence and security sectors, commented on the strategy announcement, “The government underlining the importance of the defence sector to the UK economy is hugely welcomed, particularly the sector’s inclusion as a high-priority area for growth. ADS has consistently convened meaningful engagement between our members, MoD and wider stakeholders, and we look forward to continuing this in the latest phase.
“Industry greatly appreciates the opportunity for deep involvement with these processes,” Craven added. “To deliver the right capability to support the UK’s ability to deter, it is pivotal that we continue to contribute to military planning activities.”
As part of its new approach the Labour government is also appointing a fully fledged National Armaments Director, whose job will br to ensure the British armed forces are properly equipped to defend the UK, to build up the British defence industry and to crack down on waste.
The last Defence Industrial Strategy was published in 2021, before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The new Defence Industrial Strategy will align with the Strategic Defence Review, which is due to be published in early 2025.
