Thousands more welders and engineers are needed to boost the UK’s defence capabilities and move the sector to a war footing, industry insiders believe.
Experts have warned that failing to fix the skills crisis could cause challenges in meeting demand from Government plans to hike defence spending to three per cent by the next Parliament.
Some within the industry have called for the UK’s industrial base to be mobilised with “shadow factories”, similar to those set up before the Second World War which drew upon personnel from across the automotive industry, so weapons’ supply could be expanded at short notice.
Andrew Kinniburgh, director general of Make UK Defence, the manufacturers lobby group, said there are around 10,000 vacancies in the UK sector currently, including thousands of welders.
Polish, Bulgarian and Filipino welders are among those recruited from overseas to plug gaps in an ageing domestic workforce.
He told The i Paper: “We’re desperately short of welders. If you look at somewhere like the Clyde, BAE Systems, all the signage is in Polish and English.
“We don’t have the young people. We need to grow our own.
“They’re all fighting for the same people. And then imagine if you’re an SME trying to attract a welder, it becomes even more difficult.
“There’s delay for delivery. There’s difficulty obviously, meeting the timescales.”
The British Army Ajax armoured vehicle (Photo: Finnbarr Webster/Getty Images)Despite the shortage of builders and engineers, Britain is still set to spend billions of pounds more on defence in the next decade to prepare for what Keir Starmer called a “dangerous new era” in world history in light of the Ukraine war.
The Strategic Defence Review, which will consider the current state of the armed forces, the threats the UK faces and the capabilities needed to address them, is due to be published this spring.
The EU has outlined plans to bolster defence capabilities by €800bn (£660bn) increase to production as European governments scramble to rearm amid a looming threat from Russia.
There needs to be a “serious look at skills and education”, Mr Kinniburgh said, adding it would be a “challenge” to meet Government plans for defence spending in the coming years unless the shortage in skills was addressed.
Submarine welders have been in such short supply that pay of up to £80 an hour has been offered, it’s understood.
Construction work on HMS Venturer(top) and HMS Active at Babcock’s dockyard in Rosyth (Photo Andrew Milligan/PA Wire)“It’s now that we need to start bringing them in to make sure that in two, three years time, when the budget is £6bn more a year, that we’ve got the people to deliver it,” he added.
Colleges were also losing money on engineering apprentices as the money they received from the Government levy funds was less than the cost of training, he added.
In a bid to meet the shortfall, BAE now has its own shipbuilding academy and apprentice programme on the River Clyde in Glasgow.
BAE, with the new Royal Navy submarine-hunting frigates, and Babcock, who are constructing the Type 31 frigates at its Rosyth dockyard, are among firms using robot welders to speed up production.
Babcocok’s chief corporate affairs officer John Howie said: “We build missile tubes for the ballistic missile submarine programme for the US and the UK and have introduced robotic welding quite extensively within this programme.
“This same type of innovation on the Type 31 Frigate programme is enabling us to deliver productivity levels that are two and three times better than they were, for instance, on the [Queen Elizabeth Class] aircraft carrier programme, which itself was groundbreaking at that time.”
On land, £5 billion is being spent on 623 Boxer armoured vehicles between Rheinmetall BAE Systems Land’s plant in Telford and the Franco-German KNDS’s site in Stockport.
There are also 148 Challenger 3 tanks expected to be in service by 2030, while 589 Ajax armoured vehicles being assembled at Merthyr Tydfil are due by the end of 2028.
British Challenger 2 main battle tanks during a training exercise in Poland (Photo: Cpl Rebecca Brown, RLC/UK MOD)Established companies such as Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and BAE Systems, the so-called primes, have dominated the sector for decades, while nearly 70 per of defence spending goes to businesses outside London and the South East.
But only four per cent of this spending went to SMEs in 2023-2024, with the Government last week announcing a new hub to allow smaller firms better access to the defence supply chain.
More should be spent on SMEs and mid-tier firms who could be teed up to boost supplies of ammunition making, for example, an area dominated by BAE Systems, Mr Kinniburgh believes.
In December, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) war-gamed how the military and industry could sustain personnel on the frontline when faced with constant supply chain disruption and intense fighting.
Speaking to the Defence Select Committee on 4 March, Mr Kinniburgh said while the sector was not yet on a war footing it needed to “move quickly to get there” and boost capacity.
He told The i Paper: “We’ve suggested in the Defence Industrial Strategy that we almost create shadow factories, a little bit like in World War Two, so you have capacity in the supply chain ready to go.
“You may not be using it actively but you’ve paid for it to be there, and then you pay a little bit of sort of care and maintenance to keep it there.”
From 1935 onwards, shadow factories were built across the UK with automotive plants converted to produce Spitfires, Hurricanes and Lancaster bombers.
These days, the sector was also in an “arms race” with fintech companies for electrical and software engineers, Mr Kinniburgh said.
square WEATHER UK records hottest day of the year at 19.7°C before cold snap hits
Read More
Their skills can be used for designing hypersonic missile engines, nuclear warheads or torpedo systems, but higher salaries in the City of London were luring would-be recruits away.
A lack of licensed aircraft engineers is among the challenges facing Affinity, a firm supplying aircraft to the RAF at three training bases.
Affinity’s tradespeople maintain the Grob 120TP, Embraer Phenom and Texan planes at RAF Cranwell, RAF Buxton, Heath and RAF Valley
But less younger workers were coming through, with the firm having to pay to train staff themselves, while the defence industry was competing with commercial airlines for skills.
The talent pool had also reduced significantly due to post-Brexit rule changes from the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) meaning only licensed aircraft engineers with a UK licence could be hired.
Alex Davison, business director at Affinity Flying Services, also pointed to licensed aircraft engineers being unsupported by the apprenticeship framework.
“Ultimately, if the skills gap isn’t closed, and we don’t invest as a country into engineering, it will become a challenge in order to maintain what we currently have and the fleets that we are wanting to invest in,” she said.
A Ministry of Defence Spokesperson said: “This Government’s historic increase in defence spending to 2.5 per cent of GDP by April 2027 will boost national security and make defence an engine for economic growth throughout the UK.
“We are working closely with Skills England to make sure the defence sector has the skills it needs to thrive, and this will be an important element of our upcoming Defence Industrial Strategy.
“The Defence Industrial Strategy will mobilise the private sector to help face down global threats, direct more public investment to British businesses and create jobs and growth in every nation and region of the UK. With a strong UK defence sector we will make Britain secure at home and strong abroad.”
Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( UK needs thousands more engineers and welders to reach new defence target )
Also on site :
- Israel launches major offensive to 'seize and control' areas of Gaza
- Werenoi dead: Rapper dies aged 31 just hours before gig after being rushed to hospital as tributes pour in
- Top 10 Summer 2025 Nail Trends, According to Celebrity Manicurists