RUSI supports the Government’s position that the defence industry can be an important driver of economic growth. Basically, boosting the economic case for increased spending on the UK’s defence and security.
According to the Institute’s research – the report is entitled “The Defence Pound, National & Local Prosperity” – the defence sector accounts for one in every 60 UK jobs. Also that it has an outsize positive effect on local communities, predominantly in locations outside London.
RUSI report
Other headline findings are that salaries in the defence sector are higher than the UK average. This in turn means higher disposable incomes and multiplier effects supporting local businesses.
The defence industry is also said to drive social mobility. This is due to providing long-term employment opportunities to a broader geographical spread of regions, rather than a South-East concentration.
Defence firms also train and employ a high number of people with STEM (science, technology, engineering, maths) skills, it highlights. This is contributing to the national science and engineering skills base
The report’s authors are Professor Trevor Taylor, Professorial Fellow in Defence Management at RUSI, and Dr Linus Terhorst, Research Analyst for Defence, Industries & Society at RUSI.
Yeovil
Specific examples included reference to a 2024 study of the economic impact of Leonardo in the UK by Oxford Economics.
This showed average wages at Leonardo Yeovil of £51,000, as compared with the overall local average of £32,000. Also that every Leonardo job – and supported job in its supply chain – generated about 1/3 of a job through employees’ spending.
Similar salaries and multiplier effect ratios were reported for the Edinburgh electronics business and other smaller Leonardo UK sites.
Strategic defence review
The UK strategic defence review includes a commitment to increase government defence spending to 2.5% of GDP by 2027.
According to Healey, the strategic defence review plans will make the British Army “10 times more lethal by combining future technology of drones, autonomy and AI with the heavy metal of tanks and artillery”.
The review also states:
“This is a new vision for how the UK’s Armed Forces should be conceived…Innovation and procurement measured in months, not years; and the breaking down of barriers between individual Services, between the military and the private sector, and between the Armed Forces and wider society.”
The review also has an emphasis on drones – that UK innovation should be driven by lessons learned from Ukraine. That we should be “harnessing drones, data, and digital warfare to make our Armed Forces stronger and safer”.
Image: Leonardo apprentices at the report’s official launch event with MPs at Westminster yesterday.
See also: British Army fires Raytheon’s drone-destroying high-energy laser
