The workforce in the defence sector’s priority occupations is estimated to grow by 53,000 between 2025 and 2035, according to an answer given in Parliament.
Callum Anderson, the Labour member for Buckingham and Bletchley, asked what analysis had been undertaken of the defence sector’s future workforce requirements.
Luke Pollard, the Minister for Defence Readiness and Industry, said: “The Ministry of Defence has been working closely with Skills England and industry, through the Defence Industrial Joint Council, to understand skill gaps in the sector.
“In August, in conjunction with Skills England, we published a Defence Sector Skills Needs Assessment, which identified that the workforce in the defence sector’s priority occupations is estimated to grow by 53,000 workers between 2025 and 2035.
“We are also developing a Defence Jobs Plan with ADS, which will articulate the skill challenges the sector faces and the steps that the Government and industry are putting in place to ensure the sector has the workforce it requires.”
Shortages of suitably qualified and experienced people have surfaced repeatedly in the department’s own project reporting as a cause of delay, and the submarine, shipbuilding and complex weapons programmes now competing for the same welders, engineers and systems specialists are the ones that make a ten-year growth figure of this size hard to deliver.
