Why investment in defence manufacturing needs to be more than engineering brilliance

Last month, Defence Secretary John Healey announced that 13 sites across the UK have been identified for new munitions and energetics factories, part of a £1.5 billion investment to strengthen Britain's defence industrial base. Six new factories will be built this parliament, with production beginning within 12 months and at least 1,000 new jobs created.

The engineering challenge is formidable. Building facilities to produce propellants, explosives and pyrotechnics at scale, something Britain hasn't attempted in nearly two decades, requires exceptional technical expertise, stringent safety protocols, and significant capital investment. Yet there is another challenge, rarely discussed in procurement announcements, that will be equally determinative of success: whether these projects can build the ecosystem of understanding and support required to sustain them through the inevitable complexities of delivery.

The challenge is compounded by decades of cutbacks that cast a long shadow. Rebuilding the engineering and manufacturing skills base, ensuring lessons once learnt are not forgotten again, is not trivial. The recent surge in apprenticeships driven by tier one and two companies demonstrates recognition of the scale of recovery required. Earmarking a budget proves straightforward; spending it cost-effectively to deliver capability at pace is rather more demanding.

These facilities will not succeed in isolation, however accomplished the engineering. They will require sustained support from local communities reassured about safety and convinced of economic benefit, skilled workers choosing careers in a sector many will know little about, supply chains coordinating around unfamiliar requirements, MOD stakeholders maintaining confidence through inevitable delays, and Parliament understanding why this investment merits protection through future spending reviews. Each of these relationships depends on effective communication. Defence has a mixed record here. Brilliant engineering has foundered before when projects could not maintain the understanding and support required for complex, long-term delivery.

The war in Ukraine offers instructive lessons. Ukraine achieved extraordinary industrial mobilisation, scaling domestic drone production to an estimated 2-3 million units annually, with over 96 per cent manufactured domestically. This was accomplished not merely through technical capability, but through extraordinarily tight feedback loops between manufacturers, military users and government. Ukrainian firms, supported by NATO partner funding and technical assistance, could communicate operational requirements and technical solutions at a pace traditional Western procurement struggles to match. The innovation was not simply building things faster but understanding requirements and adapting solutions faster.

Defence organisations consistently encounter specific communication difficulties that threaten programme delivery. MOD audiences operate within distinct vocabularies and contextual frameworks where the same technical term can carry entirely different meanings depending on whether one is speaking to tactical operators, strategic planners, or procurement officials. MOD stakeholders face multiple competing drivers, tactical versus strategic, unit-level versus force-wide requirements. When organisations cannot articulate problems with sufficient clarity, or when funding constraints prevent frank discussion of what is genuinely achievable, communication breakdowns become inevitable.

Defence decision-making structures remain opaque to those outside them. Organisations struggle to identify the actual decision-makers, understand internal political dynamics, or navigate the institutional barriers that slow communication to bureaucratic pace. This opacity proves particularly daunting for innovative SMEs without defence heritage. Whilst government actively encourages SME participation through bodies like the £400 million Defence Innovation fund, smaller firms must navigate these communication complexities without the institutional knowledge larger contractors possess. Often the brilliant engineering required comes from precisely such suppliers, who find themselves facing communication barriers that their technical excellence alone cannot overcome. Below senior decision-maker level, MOD structures demonstrate considerable risk aversion, and when junior officials lack authority to make substantive decisions, communication becomes protracted, with each layer filtering or delaying information flow.

The Defence Secretary referenced "wartime pace" repeatedly in his announcement. Yet rapid delivery imposes its own communication requirements. Technical stakeholders require detailed specifications whilst political stakeholders require clear outcomes. Both require confidence they possess accurate, appropriately framed information. When difficulties emerge, as they inevitably will in complex engineering projects, that information must travel quickly from delivery teams to programme managers to MOD stakeholders. Peacetime procurement often filters or delays uncomfortable news. Wartime pace cannot afford such delays.

These factories will require coordination between MOD, industry, local authorities, skills providers and communities. This demands establishing shared understanding across institutions with different priorities, vocabularies and decision-making processes. Parliament and the public must maintain support through the challenges inherent in complex industrial projects, which requires honest communication about both progress and setbacks, not defensive public relations when difficulties arise.

The companies awarded contracts for these facilities will succeed not solely on technical merit, but on their ability to communicate safety and environmental credentials convincingly to local communities, articulate value in terms MOD stakeholders recognise, build trust through transparent reporting of progress and challenges, attract skilled workers through compelling narratives about career development, and coordinate effectively across intricate supply chains through clear, consistent communication.

This programme tests whether Britain can deliver complex defence infrastructure at the pace contemporary security requires. Success will depend on exceptional engineering, but also on building the communication infrastructure that enables diverse stakeholders to understand, support and sustain complex delivery over years. The £1.5 billion investment will construct physical infrastructure. The communication infrastructure, the shared understanding, the trusted relationships, the reliable information flows, will determine whether those factories deliver the capability Britain requires.