Securing Scotland’s Future: Defence Skills and Jobs

Status / emerging findings

• Scotland receives £2.1 billion of £31.7 billion in UK MOD spending—significantly below its population share—despite hosting major aerospace, shipbuilding, and engineering clusters worth £3.7 billion and growing 55% since 2020.
• Critical skills gaps in defence STEM (radio frequency engineering, analogue electronics) with colleges seeing 40:1 applicant-to-space ratios, yet college funding has fallen 20% in real terms over five years, crippling apprenticeship capacity.
• Defence careers lack any coordinated school-level marketing despite defence manufacturing being the largest private sector recruiter in regions like Fife; employers report receiving 900+ applications for 10 apprenticeships.
• Scottish Government's September 2025 anti-genocide procurement policy introduced with no prior industry consultation, creating three months of business uncertainty and paused contracts.
• Universities and colleges play distinct roles—colleges produce work-ready apprentices while universities develop cutting-edge researchers in AI, quantum, robotics, and photonics that underpin defence innovation.

Why it matters

Scotland has a growing, world-class defence sector but risks wasting its economic potential and ceding jobs to other UK regions unless it fixes education funding, careers marketing, and policy consistency.

Tone arc

January session: defence industry presented growth narrative and called for fair UK spending share; March session: tone shifted to systemic frustration as education leaders revealed that despite employer demand, institutional underfunding and lack of careers promotion create structural barriers to supply.

Key witnesses

ADS Scotland, Make UK Defence, QinetiQ, Scottish university and college leaders (unnamed in summaries)