Defence Industry In N. Ireland

Executive Summary

Since 2015, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has been explicitly directed to contribute to UK prosperity and, since then, it has consistently emphasised that the whole of the country should benefit from defence spending. The defence industry is economically important to many areas of the UK, and defence policy must be consistent with an industrial strategy that promotes jobs and skills throughout the UK’s regions and nations. In light of these policy pledges to give defence a more regional footprint, this paper explores the extent of defence activity in Northern Ireland (NI), a region that exhibits considerable defence potential yet has benefited only marginally from defence expenditure in recent years.

The paper finds that:

• NI is a long-contested region of the UK and experienced decades of violent sectarian conflict between the late 1960s and the late 1990s. The shadow of this conflict, some local political parties’ antipathy to the defence industry and a historical trend towards unequal regional MoD spending have considerably affected the defence demographics of NI today, resulting in little work being located there. However, a series of contextual and business changes are underway involving three prominent businesses with considerable defence potential: Thales, an experienced defence-focused business unit; Harland & Wolff, a heavy engineering firm at the centre of the National Shipbuilding Strategy’s aim of regenerating the shipbuilding sector; and Spirit AeroSystems, a high-technology aerospace company looking to expand into the defence space.

• In addition to these three larger companies, the NI defence sector comprises many small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) operating predominantly in the digital manufacturing and technology sectors. Despite the customer focus and agility that they add throughout the defence supply chain, these smaller companies still feel that defence is a particularly difficult market to access. They experience several difficulties, some largely common to small firms across the country and others peculiar to the NI context.

• Another key industrial asset in NI is its civilian aerospace legacy. The relevance of this sector is enhanced by the growing inter-relationships between the civil and military sectors. In an era where information capture and analysis are central to defence capability, surveillance and communications systems are often deployed on and in civil aircraft. In the uncrewed air systems domain, such systems are increasingly used for civil and military purposes. Thus, NI suppliers with certified qualities should explore and be considered for work in both the defence and civil sectors.

• In addition to a strong civilian aerospace pedigree in the region, defence can also leverage NI’s vibrant cyber security sector. In the years since the Good Friday Agreement, NI has become a hotspot for cyber-security innovation, with cities such as Belfast and Derry/Londonderry exhibiting high technology specialists and consistently attracting domestic as well as overseas investment. Through its cyber-security clusters and academic centres of excellence, NI has developed beyond the average UK science and technology capabilities, nurtured science, technology, engineering and mathematics skills and established leading R&D programmes. These activities are the basis for generating military and security capabilities and other tangible and intangible assets, which are themselves levers of national power and influence.

In all, NI exhibits considerable defence potential, with three prominent businesses at the top of the supply chain that can, together with the extensive range of SMEs in the region, create an opportunity to promote NI, not as part of the problem set of UK defence and security, but as a valued contributor to its management and solution. The MoD should be monitoring the situation and looking for further opportunities to support local stakeholders, as the current UK government ambition that the whole of the UK should benefit from defence activity is clearly not being met. This should be a particular concern of those in the MoD focused on prosperity and also be in the consciousness of all involved with defence spending with the private sector.

Introduction

There is a growing interest in the place of defence, especially the defence industry, in the UK economy. The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has been directed to contribute to national prosperity since the 2015 National Security Review. A study on defence in the economy by former defence procurement minister Philip Dunne was published in 2018. Recognised data limits in turn prompted the creation of the Joint Economic Data Hub (JEDHub) within the Defence Solutions Centre, whose initial report was published in 2022. The government’s 2021 Defence and Security Industrial Strategy (DSIS) included economic considerations among a range of wider factors.

There has long been awareness of regional variations in the economic impact of defence work, but a parliamentary exchange in 2020 between Dunne and Secretary of State for Defence Ben Wallace made clear that the government is aware of local and regional considerations and aspires to see benefits for the whole of the UK.

The Secretary of State for Defence (Mr Ben Wallace): The MOD makes procurement decisions based on security, capability requirement, cost, supply chain and other social value considerations and will continue to do so. The November 2020 changes to the Green Book will ensure that there is an increased focus on setting clear objectives and consideration of location-based impacts. MOD footprint and spend is widely distributed across the UK and future procurement will continue to reflect this.

…

While the end-of-year rules were not changed, the recent £24.1 billion multi-year settlement with the Treasury will now allow the MOD to invest in next generation military capability across the whole United Kingdom.

In Parliament, the Scottish Affairs Committee has devoted extended attention to defence in Scotland, but there has been little systematic information about the defence industry in Northern Ireland (NI), a gap that this paper seeks to fill.

Aims and Objectives

This paper examines the main challenges related to conducting defence business in NI as well as the key players in the region’s defence industrial landscape. It explores this landscape with a focus on three objectives:

1. To collect, digest and explain information on the current position regarding spending on defence industry in NI.

2. To assess the ambition and potential of businesses in NI to do more in and for the defence sector.

3. To generate suggestions for government action to facilitate the ambition that the whole of the UK should benefit from the defence budget.

The paper focuses primarily on the defence sector and on traditional defence players in NI. The security industry in NI is diversified, offering products and services to numerous government departments and organisations, as well as a broad spectrum of clients in the private sector. In contrast, the MoD is frequently the only buyer of specialised defence goods. Although it has thousands of suppliers for a wide range of products and services, many of which are not naturally associated with military capability, it typically purchases defence equipment from a limited number of much larger prime contractors who are able to handle the complex financial, technological and engineering requirements of delivering highly complex systems. These suppliers are the focus of this research. Government policy shapes the UK defence industry’s market much more than that of the security industry. Due to the MoD’s special relationship and ability to shape the market, this paper primarily focuses on the defence sector in NI and on the activities of Tier 1 and 2 suppliers therein. The extent and importance of the security sector in NI, and particularly cyber, is nonetheless addressed in Chapter IV.

Methodology

The research for this paper included a targeted review of academic literature on regional defence spending, as well as of grey literature (for example, reports from industry associations, defence company websites, UK government websites, innovation organisations and independent research organisations) in order to provide a considered, well-referenced analysis. The researchers also spent a week in NI speaking to industry associations, and industry prime and lower-tier suppliers. “Lower tier” refers to mid-tier, mid-sized and small SMEs – that is, non-prime defence contractors. Interviewees within these companies were selected on the basis of their knowledge of the topic, with a snowball sampling drawing from a network of defence companies in the region provided by Aerospace, Defence, Security & Space (ADS), a UK-wide industrial association. A list of the organisations and stakeholders whose insights have informed this research are in the Annex. Where possible, interview data was triangulated with open source references. The identities of those providing information and the organisations they work for have been kept confidential to facilitate their ability to speak freely, with exceptions related to those who explicitly agreed to be identified.

I. Defence Procurement and the Levelling-Up Agenda

Equipping the armed forces to deliver their outputs is one of the most critical, demanding and complex tasks faced by the UK government. The procurement of military equipment has never been a simple matter of seeking to buy the “best kit” for the military, as defence procurement can be an important factor in a nation’s economic strength, making contributions beyond the pure military instrument. Defence spending often plays a key role in anchoring regional economies, including providing opportunities to communities in otherwise economically deprived areas by, for instance, promoting employment and the development of specialist knowledge, skills and expertise, or by promoting regional investment opportunities through defence-related exports. As such, procurement decisions can have ramifications for the dynamism of regional ecosystems.

Since 2015 and even before, the UK government has sought to include many of these considerations in explicit policy frameworks such as sector strategies, most prominently the DSIS. Since 2015, the MoD has been centrally directed to use its funding, in part, to promote national prosperity. Dunne’s report in 2018 argued that procurement decisions should not rest on cost alone, and that consideration should also be given to the prosperity impact on local economies when making procurement decisions. The Defence in a Competitive Age 2021 paper stressed how defence benefited the whole of the UK, including employment, publishing numbers that aggregated the benefits in Scotland, Wales and NI. The DSIS further reinforced the multiple benefits linked to defence procurement.

In 2023, the government aims to use defence procurement for the pursuit of multiple objectives that were well summarised in the Land Industrial Strategy published in 2022 (see Figure 1).

▲ Figure 1: Elements of the Land Industrial Strategy Objectives Framework. Source: MoD, “Land Industrial Strategy: Fusing Our Capability and Industrial Objectives”, 2022, p. 27.

The economic impact of defence spending can be negative when expenditure is excessive, but it clearly generates employment and can involve the generation of skills for the civil economy. Defence spending on R&D can yield technologies that are valuable in both the military and civil sectors. And a not-trivial consideration is the significant proportion of defence funds spent in country that are returned to the Treasury in the form of income and other taxes. Long-term defence projects also encourage participating firms to invest in manufacturing facilities that can then have civil uses. In 2023, very few of these benefits apply in NI, a situation that this paper attempts to analyse.

II. The Defence Business in Northern Ireland: Background

This chapter discusses the macroeconomic situation in NI and reasons for the limited defence spending in the region.

Economic Background and NI Defence Share

Across a broad range of economic and social metrics, geographic differences in the UK are large in absolute terms and have widened over recent decades. NI is a region of just over 1.9 million people, and accounts for 2.8% of the UK’s population. It was once well known for shipbuilding and the linen industry, but these industries have experienced a severe decline. NI is the poorest performing UK region for productivity, almost 20% below the UK level, and is falling behind, with a lower level of productivity growth relative to the UK average.

Mirroring these disparities, the UK defence sector has historically been characterised as exhibiting a north–south divide, with southern regions of the UK receiving the major share of defence expenditure and employment. This trend continues, and throughout the 21st century NI has benefited minimally from defence spending. According to the Office for National Statistics, total annual MoD expenditure with UK industry was just over £21 billion in 2021/22, with NI receiving 0.5% of the total (see Table 1).

▲ Table 1: MoD Total Spending with UK Industry and NI Share: 2013/14 to 2021/22 (in Current Prices). Source: MoD, “Finance–Economics: Annual Statistical Bulletin: Regional Expenditure”, “Table 2: MOD Expenditure with UK Industry in Current Prices by Region”.

In terms of MoD spending per head in a region, the NI figure for the year 2021/22 was £60, while the national average was £310 (see Table 2).

▲ Table 2: MoD Spending with UK Industry Per Person: UK Average and NI Figures, 2013/14 to 2021/22 (in Constant Prices). Source: MoD, “Finance–Economics: Annual Statistical Bulletin: Regional Expenditure”, “Table 5: MoD Expenditure Per Person with UK Industry in Constant 2020/21 Prices by Region”.

With a population of over 1.9 million, the latest (2023) report by the MoD’s JEDHub shows that Northern Ireland accounted for 0.8% of national defence private sector employment. A report by the MoD in 2022 showed that in terms of direct defence-related employment, in 2020/21, for every 100,000 people in full-time employment in NI, just 60 of these jobs were UK defence related. The equivalent number for Scotland was 640 and for the southwest of England it was 2,060. The January 2023 edition of the same government report did not include the figures on this topic. While recent new streams of work for Thales and Harland & Wolff for missiles and Fleet Solid Support ships work are likely to boost direct employment associated with MoD spending, the figures for 2019/20 show that Northern Ireland only accounted for 500 of the 125,000 jobs supported by UK defence in total.

Reasons for Low NI Defence Expenditure

There are a number of reasons why the NI defence industry is not as vigorous as that of other regions. These include the commercial failings of past defence establishments (leaving a minimal presence of defence primes in the province), sensitivities linked to the region’s past, and a historical trend towards unequal regional MoD spending.

NI is a long-contested region of the UK, which experienced decades of violent sectarian conflict between the late 1960s and the late 1990s. This period, known as the Troubles, came to an end in 1998 with the creation of a power-sharing government that included political forces aligned with armed groups. As part of this settlement, known as the Good Friday Agreement, the British government committed to reducing the number and role of the armed forces deployed in NI, as well as to the removal of security installations and defence bases. Due to the extremely complex and sensitive legacy of NI’s past and the demilitarisation efforts envisaged by the Good Friday Agreement, conducting defence business in the region has not been easy.

These difficulties, peculiar to NI, are also exacerbated by a trend of unequal regional MoD spending. This, coupled with the shadow of 30 years of conflict as well as some local political parties’ antipathy to the defence industry, has considerably affected the defence demographics of NI, resulting in little work located there. But a series of contextual and business changes are underway, and it is on these that this paper now focuses.

III. Surveying the Potential of the NI Defence Industry

This chapter outlines the activities of key Tier 1 and 2 suppliers in NI, as well as the opportunities and challenges faced by suppliers down the supply chain.

Key NI Defence Industrial Players

NI exhibits a vibrant industrial panorama with some key companies, including the US-owned aerospace company Rockwell Collins, whose NI subsidiary is focused on making seats for commercial aircraft, and Schrader Electronics, a US-owned electronics firm. Three firms with defence potential stand out: Harland & Wolff (H&W); Thales; and Spirit AeroSystems.

H&W

In August 2019, H&W in Belfast went into liquidation with 79 employees. While having had a notable and extensive history in shipbuilding, including construction of the Titanic, it had been in a sustained decline. The last vessel it built for the Royal Navy was a Leander-class frigate completed in 1968. The last ship it built was Anvil Point, a roll-on roll-off ferry under an MoD Private Finance Initiative, which was delivered in 2003.

Soon after liquidation, the firm was bought by a strategic infrastructure company, previously known as InfraStrata plc, for the modest sum of £6 million, under which it acquired a very large infrastructure in Belfast covering 81 acres that included drydock facilities able to take the largest military ships, including the UK’s aircraft carriers. There are other docking areas and two historic Samson and Goliath cranes. In terms of buildings, there are two enormous fabrication halls that were and could again be used to build whole ships and certainly ship blocks under cover, so long as investment in manufacturing plant was available.

It is easy to be impressed by the entrepreneurial spirit of the new owners who have restored the H&W name, invested in new capabilities and found work that could take advantage of their infrastructure. In February 2023, a large tanker was in drydock to be painted and for other repairs, a Royal Fleet Auxiliary vessel was moored awaiting some attention, and one of the large halls had an installed computerised welding machine involved in the building of two dozen barges for the waste and recycling firm Cory. On occasion, large cruise ships come in for maintenance work. The workforce at the yard had grown significantly by February 2023 and there is an active recruitment programme in place, especially for apprentices. In April 2023, the firm had 65 apprentices working on site.

Under the new ownership H&W has also grown by acquisition. In 2020, it bought the Appledore yard in Devon, which had been abandoned by its owner Babcock after its work on the Queen Elizabeth-class had been completed, along with an order from the Republic of Ireland for four patrol craft. When H&W took over Appledore in 2019 there was one employee, the site manager. In 2021, H&W also bought facilities on the east and west coasts of Scotland at Methil and Arnish, for which it had plans for offshore energy and defence work.

H&W also shared in the confidence in the regeneration of the UK shipbuilding industry that was a feature of the government’s National Shipbuilding Strategy of 2017 and the refresh of that document that was published in 2022.

In autumn 2022, H&W was a key element of the Team Resolute consortium that was named as the preferred bidder for the £1.6-billion contract to build three Fleet Solid Support (FSS) ships. The consortium was led by Navantia of Spain, which will provide the design (supported by BMT of the UK) and do some (possibly most) of the construction. Navantia is the prime contractor with ultimate (financial) responsibility for delivery of the vessels. H&W will begin by building at least the bow block of the ship in Belfast and other work will take place at Appledore. Capturing and enhancing the shipbuilding expertise that was formerly at Appledore, rebuilding capability in Belfast and building a positive relationship between the Appledore and Belfast sites will be important for both those sites and the FSS programme. Final assembly of the component blocks is planned for Belfast. Some sense of the weight of the work to be done by the H&W group (Belfast and Appledore) can be gleaned from the £700–800-million manufacturing contract that H&W signed with Navantia in early 2023.

Overall, the choice of Team Resolute to deliver the FSS indicates that the MoD sought to tick the levelling up and prosperity boxes by providing opportunities to H&W but, at the same time, passed financial risk to Navantia in Spain by making it the prime contractor.

In an uncomfortable session for the MoD, Vice Admiral Paul Marshall provided two pieces of reassurance for the Defence Committee. First, he specified how a workforce was to be generated for Belfast:

The mobilisation of the workforce is absolutely a key risk for the programme; it is probably the most significant risk that I see going forwards. There is a plan, first, to recruit workers into the yards. They will then go to Spain to be trained and upskilled before returning to the UK. Then, in a “train the trainer” kind of way, Spanish shipbuilders will help to train the UK workforce in the UK yards. On reducing that further, the procurement strategy of integration in a UK yard is a significant mitigation of the risk overall: we know exactly what our obligations are in the contract when it comes to not only producing the ship but how it is ultimately integrated and brought together at Harland & Wolff.

Second, he stressed that delivery of social value elements was a contractual obligation in the contract with Navantia:

the threshold social value within the FSS contract is 10%—that is an obligation within the contract and it will be managed through the usual contract governance.

Members of the Defence Committee expressed fears that H&W will be unable to acquire the skills and capability to deliver much work on the FSS, which will then result in most of the manufacturing taking place in Spain. Moreover, such a development could appear to be in Navantia’s commercial interest and seemingly limit its incentives to help out H&W. Another scenario is that H&W might generate a workforce by bringing workers from other parts of Europe.

The owners of H&W cannot be criticised for their entrepreneurial spirit and ambition but, if things do not go well, those responsible for the selection and implementation of the procurement strategy should expect to be held to account for their choices. However, should the FSS project proceed on schedule, the MoD will have made a significant contribution to turning what had become an industrial wasteland near the centre of Belfast into a hive of activity with longer-term prospects. Indeed, if H&W can deliver to time and budget, technology and expertise will be transferred from Spain, and the company will be well placed to win fabrication and support work on other vessels, including defence ships.

Thales

The Thales plant in Belfast has gone from relative neglect by government to near centre stage.

Originally this plant was part of Short Brothers and was focused on missiles. By 1989, Short Brothers was a government-controlled, struggling company. With the government agreeing to take over Short Brothers’ debts, Bombardier of Canada agreed to buy the business for £30 million in 1989. The business also included aircraft development and production in a separate but relatively nearby site that today is owned and operated by Spirit AeroSystems in the US (see section on Spirit AeroSystems below).

In 1993, Bombardier formed a missile 50–50 joint venture with Thomson-CSF of France (which was subsequently renamed Thales). Next, Bombardier strategically opted out of the defence sector and sold its share of the missile joint venture to its French partner Thales in 2000. Since then, Thales has run the Belfast plant along with a final assembly unit in the NI countryside which completes the missiles with propellant and explosive elements.

Thales Belfast has three main products: Starstreak; Lightweight Multirole Missile (LMM) systems; and the Next Generation Light Anti-Armour Weapon (NLAW). Starstreak is a short-range, high-speed, ground-to-air missile system (which can also be steered to hit surface targets over three miles away) and can be fired from land or sea platforms. LMM is a lightweight, precision-strike multirole missile designed to be fired from a variety of tactical platforms on land, sea and air. LMM development began in 2008, building on technology from Starstreak. Qualification testing and initial production commenced in late 2011, following an initial contract by the MoD in April 2011, but progress was slow. It was integrated on to the Wildcat helicopter and fired from that platform in the early 2020s.

The NLAW is a man-portable, anti-armour, tube-launched missile. This is a joint effort with Saab of Sweden, which produces many of the weapon’s internal components with Thales doing final assembly as well as some production work. The weapon came into service with the British Army in 2009.

While government provision was made for the assured UK production of small arms ammunition, most recently in the Next Generation Munitions Solutions contract with BAE Systems, and for the development and production of a range of complex weapons (in the Complex Weapons Portfolio with MBDA in the lead), there was no commitment between 2013 and 2020 about sustaining the UK development, production and support capabilities of the munitions produced by Thales. Instead, there were just a number of individual contracts. The last reported MoD order for new Starstreak missiles was in 2013, although Thales received availability and upgrade contracts in 2018 (£98 million) and 2021 (almost £100 million). However, Thales was successful in winning exports, particularly in Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia, and South Africa. Thales’ Paris headquarters gave the support, including in its move to diversify its capabilities into directed energy systems and electric power for space systems.

Then, in 2022, Thales Belfast’s products became a vital asset for UK supplies to Ukraine. The Russian invasion of Ukraine showed once again what 21st-century conventional inter-state war could look like. It underlined the value of inexpensive weapons that could bring down helicopters and low-flying, fixed-wing aircraft (Starstreak) and anti-tank weapons (including NLAWs), which played an important role in denying Russian hopes of a quick victory. The operational value of both weapons has been reliably reported, with Wallace observing: “These next generation light anti-tank weapons have played a decisive role in supporting Ukraine’s army to drive back Russia’s illegal invading forces”.

But in such a war, very large numbers of these weapons are needed. As a result of UK NLAW supply to Ukraine from British stock, the UK has needed to replace and perhaps enhance its own holdings and will also likely want to send more supplies to Ukraine. In April 2022, the MoD contracted for 500 weapons to be delivered in 2023 and in December 2022 it placed a £224-million contract with Thales and Saab for many more NLAWs for delivery in two and three years’ time. Wallace said:

Secured through Defence Equipment and Support – the MoD’s procurement arm – today’s agreement will see several thousand units delivered to UK Armed Forces across 2024–2026, in addition to around 500 being delivered in 2023 through a separate procurement.

While the experience of the Ukraine war has much enhanced recognition of Thales Belfast’s strategic significance, its economic impact should not be overlooked. In 2023, the company, by now with over 600 employees, pointed out that:

Thales contributes £35 million to Northern Ireland’s GDP with Thales Belfast’s staff average pay in the top 10% of all employees in Northern Ireland. Thales Belfast also supports an ecosystem of suppliers and 91% of our local procurement in Northern Ireland is with small to medium enterprises (SMEs).

Thales Belfast’s future seems assured while the Ukraine war lasts, but thereafter much hinges on how the MoD and the Army decide to prioritise defence funds. Will they emphasise the sort of modest-cost munitions which are the focus in NI and look to build larger stocks than before, justified by deterrence arguments and the value of capabilities for sustained warfighting? Might they also look to Thales for capabilities to surge production rates in times of crisis? Will they fund work so that the munition performance can be regularly improved, enabling the company to sustain a capacity for R&D? What place will international collaboration play in such matters? Alternatively, will complacency be restored with peace in Ukraine and neglect of mid-range munitions return as a feature of UK defence procurement?

In 2023, the signs are at least promising: Thales is developing and producing its next generation multi-role missile to be mounted on UK ships, land vehicles and helicopters and in 2021, Thales Belfast was a significant part of the consortium awarded a contract to work on the development of laser weapons, which the company said would protect 140 jobs and allow the creation of 40 more. With support from Thales headquarters, Thales Belfast is also investing in space technologies, dealing particularly with electric propulsion, and has prompted the establishment of a regional special interest group of some 30 smaller companies.

Spirit AeroSystems

Spirit is a US-based company that was formed when Boeing sold off its factory in Wichita and its Oklahoma operations in 2005. In the US, Spirit is a major supplier of structures for the 737 and Boeing remains Spirit’s main customer.

Things went awry in March 2019 when the latest version of this aircraft, the 737 Max, was grounded for 20 months after two crashes, and even in 2021 some doubts remained about its safety. Then in 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic virtually stopped the civil aviation business in its tracks with, at that time, no date visible for its recovery.

These developments prompted Spirit to decide both to reduce its reliance on Boeing and to diversify its products to include defence. In the US, it has won work designing and producing aerostructures on militarised civil aircraft, notably the KC-46 and the P-8A, but also on the CH-53K and V-280 helicopter and tilt rotor and the B-21 bomber. It has invested in composites capable of high-temperature operations and with potential for hypersonic flight.

Spirit bought BAE Systems’ aerostructures business in Prestwick in Scotland in 2006, and a key step in the move to a wider customer base was the purchase of Bombardier’s businesses in NI in 2020.

Today the core of Spirit’s work in Belfast is construction of the fuselage and other structures for Bombardier business jets and advanced composite wings for the Airbus 220. This aircraft has proved a strong commercial success, and by January 2022, there had been 680 orders and 194 deliveries, yielding an order backlog of 486.

Spirit Belfast’s production of Airbus 220 wings, which are largely made from composite materials, has benefited from extensive capital investment in production machinery including autoclaves and is a large and impressive facility. The factory uses a Spirit-owned resin injection technique which supports the creation of complex one-piece, highly loaded structures. These technologies have potential for wider defence applications.

Spirit’s aim to become a defence supplier also to the UK had initial success when in 2021, it led a team including Northrop Grumman UK and Callen–Lenz, a small UK UAV firm, in winning a £30-million MoD contract to design and produce a prototype of the Spirit-led Mosquito project, the envisaged Lightweight Affordable Novel Combat Aircraft, a “loyal wingman” system which would serve as an uncrewed platform to work with the planned Tempest manned aircraft. A first flight was envisaged by the government for 2023. However, the government ended the project at the design stage, having concluded that “more beneficial capability and cost-effectiveness appears achievable through exploration of smaller, less costly, but still highly capable additive capabilities”.

However, Spirit’s UK defence ambitions have not been abandoned and its interest in uncrewed aircraft remains very positive. Reflecting its commitment, it has seconded staff to the Defence Solutions Centre and joined the club of companies associated with the Future Combat Air System, the Tempest-plus concept which includes adjunct platforms. Spirit, with its composites expertise in defence missionised structures (such as SAAB GlobalEye), is also a member of the Airbus-led team bidding for the New Medium Helicopter, a replacement for the Puma and other platforms.

In the US, the Spirit AeroSystems company has extensive engineering expertise focused on composites but not restricted to them. Where appropriate, and subject to the International Traffic in Armaments Regulations (ITAR) and government-to-government discussions, transfer of such capabilities to the UK may be possible. Obviously, the US export control machinery covering dual-use goods and the ITAR will need to be carefully navigated, but in general, that regulatory system does not cover the management expertise that a company can bring to its subsidiaries. Also, the company has a set of growth aspirations around their defence and space strategies for unmanned, next-generation aircraft, effects, space and hypersonics.

Spirit’s interest in uncrewed air systems (UAS) remains strong and the role played by such vehicles in the Ukraine war has been striking. A large variety of UAS have been and are being developed for multiple functions and the potential for strong, lightweight and affordable composite structures in this domain is apparent. Composites might also be associated with low-maintenance stealth features in future air systems. As can be seen in the Ukraine conflict, UAS are prompting multiple efforts in counter-drone technologies and systems which threaten to reduce the viability of many of the simpler UAS on the market. A “drone–counter drone” competition is underway. It is in their capacity to navigate through these long-term issues that larger companies such as Spirit have an advantage over smaller firms that are focused on specific platforms that can be generated relatively quickly but whose utility may be of short duration. The target should be to link small-firm agility with the resources and wider perspective of larger businesses.

An SME-Dominated Economy

NI is marked by the predominance of small businesses with no easy geographic links with major defence or other large manufacturing entities outside the region. The latest NI business activity, size, location and ownership statistics, released by the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency for 2022, show that NI remains “predominantly a micro-business economy, with almost 90% of businesses having less than 10 employees. Just over one-quarter of businesses in NI had turnover of less than £50,000, whilst 70% had turnover of less than £250,000”. These are similar to the ratios found in the UK economy as a whole, but what makes NI unusual is the relative absence of large manufacturing companies to serve as SME customers and the recent growth in SMEs sufficiently interested in the defence and security sector to have joined ADS.

▲ Figure 2: Percentage of Businesses Operating in NI by Employee Size Bands, 2022. Note: The majority of businesses (89%, 70,510) in NI were micro-businesses (fewer than 10 employees). Just over 2% (1,640) of businesses had 50 or more employees. Source: Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency, “Northern Ireland Business; Activity, Size, Location and Ownership, 2022”, p. 3.

Indeed, the predominance of small businesses characterises the NI defence sector, where the majority of the local defence supply chain is made up of SMEs. For instance, Thales Belfast, the major defence prime which supports an ecosystem of suppliers, reports that 91% of its local procurement in NI is with SMEs.

In the British government’s view, SMEs bring a unique customer focus and agility that add value throughout the defence supply chain, contributing to its diversity and resilience. Across the UK in 2019–20 “they contributed work worth over £4.5 billion to defence projects, accounting for over 21% of Defence’s total spend with industry”.

This importance is reflected in the DSIS, which sets out an ambitious vision for the future of MoD’s relations with industry. By recognising the UK’s defence industry is a strategic capability “in its own right”, the DSIS placed particular emphasis on the need to maximise opportunities for SMEs to do business with the MoD given their key role in enabling technology pull through and guaranteeing supply chain resilience. However, particularly in NI, these smaller businesses face real challenges in trying to move into defence. To assess them, interviews were conducted with individual companies and industrial bodies, and wider information was collected. The points below reflect those interviews, but many of the difficulties noted are common to small firms across NI.

• Difficulties in outreach beyond their region. Geography and travel costs still matter, particularly for smaller businesses. One of the recurring difficulties reported by NI SMEs is linked to the distance of the region from London and southeast England, and the consequent difficulties in carrying out a straightforward personal conversation with figures in the MoD and Defence Equipment and Support (DE&S) without travelling to London, which can imply what are seen as significant financial costs. Similarly, the costs of getting to meet-the-buyer events and trade shows, which often but not always take place in the southeast of the UK, put a financial burden on these companies. This factor should be seen in perspective – while there are plenty of return airfares from Belfast to London that cost less than some second-class train fares within the UK mainland, a sense of distance has a psychological dimension, in addition to further costs such as hotel bills. Moreover, literature on the benefits of industrial clusters of cooperating firms suggests that geographical proximity matters, especially when the clusters are concentrated near large firms. Clustering is important for the competitiveness of smaller companies because of the advantage it creates in the value chain. According to Ebru Caymaz:

Clusters offer SMEs advantages for innovation through communication networks and strategic partnerships, increase their competitiveness at the international level, enable them to benefit from the input pool of large enterprises, develop new strategies and production techniques, and increase workforce skills.

In terms of formal meetings, online participation can be a substitute, but it does not enable the informal, lunch and coffee break discussions that can be so useful. Thus, geographic separation from the commands, the MoD and the DE&S, as well as from most defence industrial events, is a real consideration for NI’s defence SMEs.

• Meeting security standards and classifications. Across the UK, for those SMEs that are not yet in the defence space but aspire to pursue defence-related contracts, a key challenge is obtaining security clearances for people and facilities. Corporate and individual applicants for security clearances need a sponsor that is already qualified. However, most briefings on emerging defence projects are classified, so a non-traditional defence supplier can find itself in a chicken-and-egg situation in which it would need to access the content of the briefing to see how its organisation could contribute yet cannot get access without a security clearance.

• Lack of awareness of the opportunities and support available for innovation and R&D. SMEs often do not have the capacity to research the opportunities for defence work, such as those offered by the Defence and Security Accelerator (DASA) and the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL). Defence is a complicated, multi-faceted sector and it takes effort to understand customer and supplier structures. Even understanding how to present bids to the MoD requires knowledge and experience. While it is true that DASA awards grants to NI companies and its support has been transformative for some, DASA covers NI from Scotland. This means that it can lack the local knowledge necessary to tailor funding calls to actual needs in NI. As a result, some SMEs have noted that many calls for R&D projects seem to be for blue-sky research, rather than being clearly market driven. Importantly, SMEs are drawn to market-focused projects so that they can achieve a faster return on their investment.

• Lack of ownership and limited capacity to commercialise technology solutions. Local stakeholders reported that DASA funding can have a transformative effect on their business and engaging with DASA provides a valuable front door to defence. The difficulty lies, however, beyond the DASA phase, in finding product champions committed to scaling up their solution, which can lead to stilted adoption and limited enablement. Many SMEs in NI operate in the Internet of Things space, and the problem they encounter with defence is that there is no focus on continuous improvement, an inconsistent feedback loop and no interest in driving return on investment, which is unusual in the digital solutions space and might disincentivise such businesses from pursuing defence work. Although transformative, DASA contracts are only the beginning of the journey, and it is difficult for SMEs to promote the appetite for their solutions, both in the services and in the primes, once the DASA phase is completed.

All the above leads to an overall reluctance from SMEs to pursue defence work. Further, there are several other generic aspects of governmental procurement in defence that do not favour SMEs. Government contract terms can require bidders to accept major liabilities in the event of implementation problems and these can potentially kill a business. SMEs are sometimes backed by venture capitalists who are looking for high profit rates on those firms in their portfolios which are successful, but high profits are not associated with government contracts. When the MoD proceeds without formal competition, the Single Source Regulations apply, restricting profit rates to around 10%.

It is important to note that although these challenges were highlighted in author conversations with NI SMEs, many apply to all parts of the UK. The MoD also points out that many were addressed in its 2019 SME Action Plan and that it has taken a series of steps to facilitate and improve SMEs’ access to UK defence. A follow-up to the 2019 commitments was issued in January 2022.

Thus, the apparent situation is that, despite the efforts of the MoD at ministerial level to improve its exploitation of what SMEs could bring, many companies in NI still feel that defence is a particularly difficult market to access.

IV. Beyond Traditional Defence Players

As discussed in previous chapters, NI has one Tier 1 defence firm (Thales), a large Tier 1 aerospace supplier (Spirit AeroSystems) and an aspiring Tier 2 defence shipbuilding firm (H&W). Each of these larger companies has the potential to mobilise smaller companies and/or non-traditional defence suppliers down the supply chain. The level of proximity and cohesion in the region means that more than 100 firms are within one hour’s drive of each other – a high density of suppliers across all elements of the aerospace supply chain, from design and manufacture (including capabilities in machining, composites and polymers), to coatings, assembly, certification and testing.

Civil Aerospace

NI enjoys an important civil aerospace legacy. Indeed, its aerospace and defence sector is a £1.5 billion industry employing an estimated 7,000 workers directly. According to media, “there are 60 firms in Northern Ireland whose manufacturing and systems already produce structures, components and services for nearly every commercial aircraft programme in the world”. The region also manufactures over one-third of all aeroplane seats and is a “global leader in survival technology”. Notably, in a region with less than 3% of the population of the UK, NI businesses won “one-third of the prestigious SC21 (Supply Chains for the 21st Century) Business Excellence Awards and 70% of the SC21 Gold Awards at the Farnborough International Airshow”. To achieve a gold award, a company must register a higher than 99% on-time delivery performance and 99.9% quality performance, as well as scoring more than 500 points in business, manufacturing and relationship excellence. Importantly, not only did Northern Irish companies such as Moyola Precision Engineering, Denroy and IPC Mouldings Ltd retain coveted SC21 Gold Standard status throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, but NI actually saw an increase in the number of companies attaining this standard during the crisis.

These capabilities reflect the fact that NI was the first region in the UK to develop a bespoke strategy for aerospace, following the launch of Lifting Off in 2014, under the theme Northern Ireland – Partnering for Growth. The strategy was designed to establish the required supply chain structure and develop the capabilities of NI companies through supply chain excellence to increase productivity and competitiveness. To support these efforts, a key regional innovation hub was established, the Northern Ireland Advanced Composites and Engineering Centre (NIACE). Opened in January 2012, NIACE currently has 12 participating companies from a variety of sectors, including aerospace, automotive, defence, environmental and marine. The participating companies regularly collaborate with Queen’s University Belfast and Ulster University on joint research projects and on de-risking of research and development activities. Other initiatives, such as the National Aerospace Technology Exploitation Programme, encourage SMEs to collaborate with original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) in the industry to develop new technological capabilities.

The relevance of this is enhanced by the growing inter-relationships between the civil and military sectors. In an era where information capture and analysis are central to defence capability, surveillance and communications systems are often deployed on and in civil aircraft. In the UAS domain, such systems are increasingly used for both civil and military purposes. Thus, NI suppliers with certified qualities should explore and be considered for work in both the defence and civil sectors.

The Security Sector and the Role of Education

In addition to a strong civilian aerospace pedigree in the region, defence could also make use of NI’s vibrant cyber-security sector. In the years since the Good Friday Agreement, NI has become a hotspot for cyber-security innovation, with cities such as Belfast and Derry/Londonderry exhibiting high technology specialism, consistently attracting domestic and overseas investment.

The current cyber-security ecosystem in NI consists of more than 120 businesses that provide cyber-security goods and services. The Belfast city area is home to 84% of all NI cyber firms, which highlights the city’s status as a UK cyber hub with emerging technology specialists, ranked second in the UK and ninth globally in the top 25 Tech Cities of the Future for 2020/21. Belfast is “Europe’s leading foreign direct investment destination for new software development”.

A recent study estimates that there are 2,299 cyber security employees currently within NI’s cyber sector, with an average income of £48,400 in 2020. This indicates that the sector currently contributes more than £110 million in yearly wages to the NI economy. This is significant since NI has long struggled with private sector productivity and wage levels. Cyber security is a big economic opportunity for the region, with salaries much exceeding the NI private sector median levels and offering a solid foundation for growing NI private sector productivity.

This has attracted considerable investment, both domestically and overseas. The UK government has recently announced an £18.9-million investment in NI’s cyber security industry, including £11 million in government funding through the New Deal for NI, to establish a pipeline of cyber-security specialists in NI while also assisting firms and start-ups in developing new prospects. This surge of momentum behind cyber security in NI is helping to attract significant foreign investment, particularly from the US, a key investment partner, with 37 firms employing 1,432 cyber-security professionals (62% of NI-based cyber-security employment). This employment is significant as it has the ability to encourage skill development, increase investment in NI and have a positive impact on the larger ecosystem, not least in the defence space. Thanks to its vibrant cyber-security landscape, NI was recently appointed the new location for the next government-backed Digital Catapult Centre, with the aim of better showcasing NI’s tech capacity in areas such as advanced sensors, analytics and cyber security.

Key to this success was the region’s promotion of strong connections between industry and education, championed by local institutions such as Queen’s University Belfast and Ulster University. Both are pivotal in nurturing a talent pipeline of trained security professionals and in producing industry engagement by embedding academic staff in industry and embracing an “open innovation model”. The aim of this model is to enable “research to translate to industry in an agile way, ensuring demonstrable technology is in the hands of end users quickly”. While more frequent in the security space, this collaboration model is now unfolding in relation to the defence sector too. For instance, the Centre for Secure Information Technologies (CSIT) at Queen’s University Belfast has recently partnered with BAE Systems on video-based semantic analysis of crowd behaviour, while Thales has used CSIT novel Physical Unclonable Functions technology in a demonstrator for electronic component anti-counterfeiting. The private sector must play its part in promoting the opportunities it offers, and emerging regional defence players such as H&W might wish to fill any awareness gaps there may be about, for instance, the scale of BAE Systems’ work with young people in Barrow, aimed at meeting its submarine-building skills needs.

Advances in information technology and modifications to existing weapons with ISR systems means that the cyber and defence sectors are now deeply interrelated, as are the innovation challenges and skillsets required by both industries. Through its cyber-security clusters and academic centres of excellence, NI has developed beyond UK average science and technology capabilities, nurtured science, technology, engineering and mathematics skills, and established leading R&D programmes. These activities are the basis for generating military and security capabilities and other tangible and intangible assets which are themselves levers of national power and influence.

Conclusions and Recommendations

The research for this paper found considerable NI corporate interest in securing more work in defence. There are three different but complementary prominent businesses in the region: Thales, an experienced defence-focused business unit; H&W, a heavy-engineering firm at the centre of the National Shipbuilding Strategy’s aim of regenerating the shipbuilding sector; and Spirit AeroSystems, a high-technology aerospace company looking to expand into the defence space. Together with the extensive range of SMEs in the region, there is an opportunity to promote NI, not as part of the problem set of UK defence and security, but as a valued contributor to its management and solution.

This paper has also identified the main challenges related to conducting defence business in NI. Understanding and mitigating these challenges and leveraging the capabilities of local defence establishments is key to improving NI productivity and prosperity, ensuring national resilience, and ensuring that the UK’s industrial base remains capable of delivering high-quality capabilities. This chapter presents conclusions and recommendations for possible next steps for UK defence to help tackle these challenges.

Defence Spending Across the UK

Conclusion

• It is axiomatic but not assured that behaviour within government should match the directions set in governmental policy. As noted early, the MoD direction is that the whole of the UK should benefit from defence spending. Until very recently, gain for NI was minimal and, even with the contracts with Thales and the FSS contract involving H&W, the immediate future will not be much different.

Recommendations

• It would be beneficial to have a small team from the MoD tasked with understanding the business environment in the NI context and, in particular to gather data on the extent and complexity of regional supply chains and how to better integrate them in the broader UK defence industrial base. The intent would be to ensure that opportunities for securing useful work from NI firms are not overlooked.

• This is a matter on which the House of Commons Defence Committee could keep a weather eye. To date, NI has received only modest attention from the Defence Committee in Parliament. Some members visited Belfast in February 2023, but this was not part of a formal evidence session and was primarily prompted by the need to look at the industrial agility of Thales for the delivery of NLAWs. Had Russia not invaded Ukraine and had Thales not been at the forefront of NLAWs supply, there would have been little interest in the defence enterprise in NI. The last Defence Committee visit to NI took place in 2016. The Committee has little hard power, but when it identifies and publicises an issue it can prompt the MoD to direct attention to it.

The Three Major Defence Opportunity Firms

Conclusion

• The three major defence-related firms in NI find themselves in a new situation, although the nature of each situation is different. Thales’ factory is emerging as a clear player in the munitions issues that have been exposed by the conflict in Ukraine. H&W faces the challenges of re-establishing an industrial shipbuilding capability that will require the recruitment and training of a workforce and the modernisation of its infrastructure. Spirit AeroSystems is seeking to break into further defence activity using its expertise in composite materials and aerospace.

Recommendations

• While Thales has been awarded a contract to replace weapons supplied to Ukraine, its plant in Belfast needs to be recognised as a key element in the UK position on defence capability, operational independence and military sustainability. While longer-term munitions measures dealing with enhanced stock levels, production surge capabilities and international cooperation are emerging as matters for urgent attention, the MoD needs to recognise that the Thales plant will require a long-term drumbeat of development and production work to maintain it as a thriving entity.

• For H&W, the DE&S and National Shipbuilding Office should not stand back, adopt a hands-off stance and simply see what happens with the FSS project. With the FSS contract, the DE&S has pursued its normal practice of passing as much financial risk as possible to the contractor. However, Navantia could seek to reduce its financial risk by bringing as much work as possible into Spain. Commercially that could be a rational stance. Members of the Defence Committee have already made clear their concerns that Navantia would not be unhappy to keep H&W in a junior role and do most of the work in Spain. But from a UK government perspective, the FSS contract signals a wider aim of increasing prosperity and social value in NI as well as generating additional industrial shipbuilding options for the future. By judging the Navantia bid to have been the best, the MoD has put its own reputation on the line. Thus, the UK governmental bodies should be both monitoring closely how H&W are progressing in Belfast (and Appledore) and looking to see what support and guidance they can provide to H&W.

• Spirit AeroSystems UK is the UK entity of a much larger US parent which actively supports the defence development of its UK business. Its capabilities and strategic direction, including its stated readiness to grow by investment in the UK, are noteworthy. Its expertise in the development and production of composite structures means that it should be studied in detail by technical experts in government and the private sector. In order to make sense of Spirit’s potential, the MoD will likely have to rely not just on DSTL and DASA but also on its QinetiQ-led Aurora contract. The MoD should also recognise the need to protect any intellectual property that Spirit shares. One issue for government is whether Spirit should be operated as a competitor to GKN Aerospace and its partners in composite development for aerospace, or whether they should be encouraged to collaborate.

• A specific issue relates to the UK government direction in the DSIS that its forces should enjoy operational independence and that British society should enjoy economic benefits from defence procurement. UK reliance on US systems for surveillance and intelligence (the P-8A, Wedgetail, Reaper and Rivet Joint) makes clear the limitations on these ambitions. Working with Spirit on defence applications should not deepen UK vulnerability to export restrictions, especially the International Trade in Armaments Regulations, but the import of Spirit management and generic technology exploitation for defence could mean significant levelling up and prosperity benefits for NI. It could also support the export of specialist defence sub-systems to the US.

Improving the Regional Representation Mechanism

Conclusion

• There are now few military units in NI, but each of the three services have senior military leads (SMLs) in each of the four nations of the UK. Their current role encompasses a series of representational and stakeholder engagement duties, mostly service related.

Recommendation

• Since it is the services who are placing the requirements against which the DE&S and the Defence Infrastructure Organisation are delivering and designing the tendering process, there is value in industry having access to the SMLs, who could at least point them in the right directions in service headquarters and the DE&S. Additionally, local representative officers from the Royal Navy and the Army should establish familiarity with the progress and challenges of the FSS project and, in the case of the Army, with Thales’ missile capability.

NI SMEs

Conclusion

• Most firms interested in defence in NI are SMEs, which clearly have similar problems to similarly sized companies across the UK in seeking success in the defence sector. As discussed earlier, MoD attitudes to financial and technical risk, its required contracting terms and preference for time-consuming and costly formal competitive tendering are likely obstacles for many firms. However, the MoD’s own figures show that SMEs across the country are in receipt of more than 20% of government defence spending, whether directly through contracts from government or through primes, so the situation is far from hopeless.

Recommendation

• MoD strategies for SME engagement overall are beyond the scope of this paper, but nonetheless it is suggested that the MoD keeps its practices under constant review. If it wants to better leverage the potential of SMEs for technology “pull through”, it must think more about what it needs to do to be an attractive customer.

Conclusion

• In NI, the SME community stated that its difficulties associated with winning defence business for NI are partly linked to the location of the region and the costs of travel for small firms.

Recommendation

• While NI firms must recognise that reaching out to customers is a necessary business expense, the MoD could endeavour to minimise the costs to aspiring suppliers. Possible steps could include holding industry briefing days in locations near a major airport or in Belfast, and starting such gatherings in the late morning, helping firms to avoid hotel costs.

Conclusion

• The ADS director in NI discussed the number of NI SMEs involved in industry and stressed how the number had increased rapidly in recent years. Thus, there is a new situation in the province which could have been overlooked by UK authorities. The ADS team in NI are vocal and energetic promoters of the region’s SME potential, and ADS remains the leading trade organisation there. However, elsewhere in the UK, in England and Wales, the main body representing SMEs has emerged as Make UK Defence, within the wider manufacturing body Make UK. Historically, this came about because the aerospace and defence industrial bodies (ADS and before that the Society of British Aerospace Companies – SBAC) were considered to be dominated by the large primes. When the SBAC and the Defence Manufacturers Association merged to form ADS, there was a perceived need for a more SME-focused body, which is met in 2023 by Make UK Defence. These industrial bodies are collaborators, but also competitors for members.

Recommendation

• Given that Make UK Defence is the prominent body for SMEs in England and Wales, and ADS has that role in NI, it would be sensible for them to work together to secure the best deals for SMEs across the UK. If two bodies do not send coherent and compatible messages, both are less likely to have an impact.

Defence in NI

Conclusion

• While NI hosts a plethora of innovative SMEs and micro-businesses, further support is needed to enable a cohesive regional defence and security sector to collaborate, overcome barriers to entry and help supply chains to compete and realise new technologies. The maritime and aerospace sectors, for instance, both prominent in NI, tend to operate in silos, leaving considerable space for further synergies between businesses operating in different sectors.

Recommendation

• ADS and Make UK Defence should support the development of more and active clusters of SMEs in the region with defence interests. Such semi-formal groupings could focus on the three obvious defence sectors (aircraft, ships and munitions) but could also address the defence and wider security sector as a whole. In the UK, as observed earlier, the MoD has supported the advance of a defence-wide cluster for the southwest of England. An NI defence and security cluster could build on existing arrangements such as the NI Cyber Security Cluster and the Belfast Maritime Consortium, which could exploit the existence of well-established technology hubs such as the NIACE.

• Such clusters work best when the member organisations have access to and can share awareness of the key problems facing potential customers. Given the proliferating interest in UASs, a cluster linking Spirit with information-focused SMEs in NI would have potential. Informational inputs from the MoD and the services would lubricate regional industrial thinking and initiative.

Conclusion

• The military situation in Ukraine, the MoD’s readiness to react through private investment in H&W by issuing the FSS contract, Spirit’s enthusiasm to do more in the defence space and the growth in the number of SMEs joining ADS all point to a multi-faceted resurgence of interest in the defence sector in NI. The national political context is such that the UK government is concerned to capture the economic and social value attributes of defence spending and to see that all regions of the country benefit.

Recommendations

• The MoD should have a specified target for an increased amount of defence work in NI. This is not to suggest that defence spending per head should rise to the levels in Scotland or even the national average, but that there should be a focused exploration of possibilities of raising it above the trivial amount at which it currently stands. This effort should involve initiatives from across the UK defence acquisition community in the MoD, the armed services, the various procurement bodies in governmental defence, especially the DE&S, Defence Digital, and the Defence Infrastructure Organisation, and the private sector. Such an effort would be highly compatible with the MoD’s levelling-up and prosperity agendas.

• There is a need finally to consider the wider impact of an increased defence industrial effort in NI. While some nationalists might resent such direct support for UK military power, the authors’ conversations with local stakeholders suggest that change that brings well-paid and secure jobs, and that requires people to work with others regardless of their sectarian origin, would have an integrating and conciliatory impact on society.

Annex: List of Participants

This supporting annex lists the government and industry experts who contributed their insights to the research for this paper. Participants included representatives from the following organisations:

• ADS Northern Ireland – a trade organisation representing the aerospace, defence, security and space industries in the region.
• Angoka – an Internet of Things security company, whose mission is to ensure the safety and resilience of Smart Cities and Smart Mobility by providing high-grade, quantum-secure solutions.
• Cooneen Defence – a provider of clothing for military and police personnel across the world – combat, patrol and operational garments.
• Harland & Wolff (Belfast) – shipbuilding company operating in the maritime and offshore industry.
• House of Commons Defence Committee.
• Invest Northern Ireland – the economic development agency for Northern Ireland.
• Kinsetsu – an SME providing intelligent tracking solutions.
• Ministry of Defence – industrial strategy and exports.
• Spirit AeroSystems UK – a large UK Tier 1 aerospace manufacturer.
• Survitec – a manufacturer of personal survival equipment for the maritime, defence and government, aerospace and energy sectors.
• Thales Air Defence Limited – a defence manufacturer producing short-range air defence missiles.

Isabella Antinozzi is a Research Analyst in the Defence, Industries and Society Research Group at RUSI. Her research interests include UK defence and security, post-Brexit UK-EU relations, the European security architecture and transatlantic cooperation. Prior to joining RUSI, she worked as a researcher at the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) where she analysed the European Union’s (EU) defence and security policies, intra-European defence industrial cooperation as well as cooperation between the EU and third states in this field.

Trevor Taylor is Director of the Defence, Industries & Society Programme and Professorial Fellow in Defence management at RUSI where he has worked since 2009. He has more than 30 years’ experience of working with government and business in the defence and security area as an academic and consultant. In contrasting roles, he has been an assessor in the national research evaluation exercises, Chairman of the British International Studies Association, and an elected Council Member of the former Defence Manufacturers Association. He currently serves on the Advisory Board of Make UK Defence, an association particularly serving small & medium sized entities.