Calum Taylor, Deputy Head of Place and Industry Skills at the Ministry of Defence, has set out how the £50 million Scotland Defence Growth Deal will be delivered, telling delegates at the Scottish Defence Procurement and Supply Chain Summit in Glasgow that the investment is designed to benefit the entire supply chain, not just prime contractors.

Taylor told the summit that the MoD already spends over £2 billion annually in Scotland, supporting thousands of jobs and hundreds of businesses across the supply chain, but said the growth deal was about being more deliberate and strategic in how that investment was directed. The deal forms part of a combined £432 million programme of defence growth deals and industry skills programmes that came out of the Defence Industrial Strategy.

Three specific investments within the Scotland deal have already been announced. Five million pounds will go toward the Arrogate Innovation Campus in Rosyth, described as a global centre of excellence driving the adoption of emerging technologies into large-scale manufacturing. A further five million pounds will support the Clyde Engineering and Innovation Centre, a new commercial facility accelerating the real-world application of digital data and automation in shipbuilding and advanced manufacturing. Ten million pounds has been allocated to Defence Technical Excellence Colleges, designed to develop a skilled workforce pipeline for the defence sector and wider dual-use industries, with two colleges aligned to defence clusters in the east and west of Scotland.

Taylor said the facilities being invested in were designed to be open and collaborative, particularly for SMEs. Access to advanced manufacturing, testing, and innovation capability, opportunities to collaborate with primes and academia, and better visibility of where defence was investing were among the practical benefits he described. “This is about strengthening the foundation that enables you to compete, grow, and succeed within that defence supply chain.”

He drew on the Typhoon programme as an example of what a whole industry approach looks like in practice. “The Typhoon programme supports more than 20,000 jobs across hundreds of UK firms, including critical engineering expertise here in Scotland. That is what a whole force, whole industry approach looks like, and it’s exactly that approach that sits at the heart of defence growth.”

Taylor said a delivery board would be established at the centre of the Scotland Defence Growth Deal, bringing together government, industry, and academia to set direction, prioritise investment, and drive delivery. He was clear that the deal was intended to be shaped by Scotland rather than directed at it. “We’re keen that this isn’t something that Whitehall is going to direct to Scotland, but something that we would deliver with Scotland.”

Over the next 12 months, the focus will be on standing up governance structures, progressing projects through business case approvals, and moving into implementation. Taylor closed with a direct message to the firms in the room: “Stay engaged.”