At a press conference following his speech at DSEI, Defence Secretary John Healey set out how the Ministry of Defence intends to work more closely with industry to accelerate the delivery of military capabilities.
In response to a question from the UK Defence Journal on how the UK can better utilise industry, Healey said the key is early and clearer engagement.
How does Government do better at utilising industry to get equipment into service faster? @geoallison asked Defence Secretary John Healey today at #DSEI2025. pic.twitter.com/gz151J5tiL
— UK Defence Journal (@UKDefJournal) September 11, 2025
“We can start by bringing you in sooner, we can start by bringing you in, not just sooner, but more clearly to understand the future war fighting and capability requirements problems we think we face,” he said.
Healey suggested a shift away from the government issuing rigid specifications and toward inviting industry to offer innovative proposals. “We can do so by switching our priority in on the government side, from detailed specifications that we then come out to you to looking for the innovative thinking and the suggestions that you can provide to us,” he explained.
He also acknowledged delays within government decision-making processes, promising efforts to cut through bureaucracy. “We then have a job to do internally. We have to clear the way for those on our side to be able to make decisions without having to go an endless merry go round, not just within defence, but in other parts of government.”
Linking his comments to lessons drawn from Ukraine, Healey underlined that readiness requires industry to be treated as a central partner. “If we believe as we must, as a country, we have to be more ready to fight in order better to deter and also to win. Should we have to fight then we’ve got to give the proper perspective and priority to industry and you’re part of defining that readiness, defining that increasing that deterrence in the future.”
He closed by stressing the need to act on those lessons rather than just acknowledge them. “That’s a very simple lesson that I touched on in my speech, that we have to take in Ukraine. We’ve been reminded, reminded about that over the last three and a half years. We’ve got to take that to heart and demonstrate it in the way that we act.”
Order equipment rather than cut and industry may up they game 🙄
I was about to say the same …amzing how industry would respond to getting an order for something!
Just this, what would bringing industry in earlier solve beyond another excuse to extend procurement timelines further. The issue industry has is it never knows if it will see any orders or know when the money is coming, then when orders eventually come, funding is spread out over the longest period possible with manufacturing kept at minimums at a point where it’s barely worth it.
It’s just more distraction from the fact the Govt simply does not want to order and commit to platforms, it’s not an industry problem, industry will move as soon as they get orders.