DSEI Gateway: Inside defence’s digital skills crisis
DSEI Gateway’s latest article by George Fitzmaurice assesses the digital skills issue facing the defence sector and its potential solutions.
Few sectors change as quickly as technology, and most others, defence included, must play catch-up to stay relevant. This game of catch-up, spurred by the rapid evolution of military capabilities and an ongoing effort to digitalise the sector, has created an urgent need for specialised talent and skills across industry and government.
However, the defence sector struggles to secure these skills. The National Audit Office found that, at the end of March 2024, digital and cyber skills were both significant ‘pinch points’ among the Ministry of Defence (MOD) workforce, despite being priority areas.
Experts in the United Kingdom (UK) have been vocal about the skills issue, with Julian David, Chief Executive Office (CEO) of TechUK, who referenced the problem at a parliamentary Defence Committee evidence session in March 2025, proclaiming:
One thing that I would like to introduce into this is digital skills, which are increasingly going to be a huge part of any defence deployment or defence capability that we have. That is really not being addressed in the current MOD and broader British defence forces environment. It is not being addressed in terms of the reserve either. There needs to be a big focus on that.
The digital skill shortage also made an appearance in His Majesty’s (HM) Government’s Strategic Defence Review (SDR), published on 2nd June, which noted that the MOD’s digital transformation had been hindered, in part, through a ‘persistent shortage of key digital skills within the armed forces and civil service’.
The defence industry is also struggling to find and access the right talent. For example, Indra, a Spanish defence company, has complained of a skills shortage in new technologies, according to a Euronews report.
Why does defence struggle with digital skills?
There are a range of reasons making effective digital skills acquisition a struggle for the defence sector, according to Fred Sugden, Associate Director for Defence and National Security at TechUK, which were highlighted during a conversation with DSEI Gateway.
A general shortage of skills in technology and engineering, for example, means the defence sector is forced to compete more aggressively with others looking for the same expertise, such as the finance, wider software engineering and technology sectors, Sugden said.
This puts defence, especially government, on the back foot, as it ‘can't necessarily compete with other industries when it comes to salaries’, Sugden noted, which shrinks the available talent pool.
‘There's a lot of competition for a fairly limited number of skilled people in that space’, he added.
Another big issue is the myriad barriers to entry in defence, according to Nick Walrond, Managing Director of Government and Defence at Sanderson recruitment.
‘The security clearance processes are definitely a problem’, Walrond told DSEI Gateway. ‘It means that skills acquisition isn’t an agile process when you weave in the requirement for security clearance for a lot of roles’.
In line with this, Walrond noted a ‘rigidity’ of environment in defence, which is likely to deter those used to working in digital areas. He also highlighted that defence roles are often unable to offer hybrid working models, which is off-putting for digital workers more used to a hybrid setup.
What does this mean for defence?
A shortage of digital skills puts strain on defence in several ways, forcing it to deliver projects less efficiently and holding back wider governmental or national objectives.
‘The best people go to the best opportunities that are made most available to them – that’s sort of classic market demand forces’, Walrond said.
With less talent, defence suffers from operational risk. ‘Capability can’t be delivered, projects drift, costs rise’, Walrond pointed out, adding that he had a ‘sense’ that the sector as a whole may try to outscore the problem, putting further pressure on costs.
Sugden added that a shortage of digital skills will hamper attempts to deliver on certain military ambitions, such as those in the SDR, noting that any increase in Britain’s military readiness will ‘require a skilled workforce to deliver’.
What can defence do to change?
Change at the governmental level is key to solving the skills crisis, with education a necessary focus point. For example, Sugden says that his company has suggested introducing dedicated technology apprenticeships, or degree apprenticeships with a defence focus.
This would involve HM Government working with universities which already have a defence presence or focus, or working to create technology certifications which are focused on specific digital skills in defence, Sugden said. Working with employers to find out their digital skills requirements would also be key to this strategy. He also added that this would help to address the challenges employers face in bringing in new people with the required digital skills.
Walrond echoed some of Sugden’s points, suggesting that HM Government should make skills a critical resilience issue, stating: ‘this SDR looks at setting up munition factories to ensure we don't run out of munitions – well, I would see digital skills as just as important’. As well as this, he added:
We should be maybe standing up talent pools and centres of excellence to serve the UK defence sector with…digital, data, cyber, AI [Artificial Intelligence] skills, and that could be done with collaborative work, partnering work with schools, universities, big tech firms and so on.
Defence technology also doesn’t seem ‘cool’ enough in Walrond’s opinion. Defence needs to work from a marketing perspective to make it ‘really, really attractive to the new generations that are coming out’, he said.
Among other ideas – such as simplifying the security process and levelling out the pay disparity between the public and private sector – Walrond suggested that HM Government take a longer-term view of the workforce challenge by building digital skills into procurement processes.
In terms of businesses themselves, which don’t have the power to create legislation, Walrond advised to become involved in collaborative partner ecosystems, saying that: ‘if you [businesses] can work with collaborative partners, you access a wider skills community, and that can mitigate against the digital skills issue’.
Adopting training and development programmes specific to the sector is also key for businesses, Walrond added, explaining that a long-term approach is necessary as it is ‘very difficult to drop somebody into the sector cold, without any exposure beforehand’.
He listed some of the outreach activity his own firm partakes in to exemplify this tactic, such as programmes targeted at early years and armed forces re-employment.
George Fitzmaurice is a UK-based defence reporter at Clarion Defence & Security. He previously worked as a reporter for tech publication ITPro, and as an intern at the New Statesman.
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