Demand for engineering talent is sharp, and the competition for it is sharper. Recent figures show that 76% of engineering employers struggle to recruit for key roles, with technical and specialist skills topping the list the Institution of Engineering and Technology's 2025 skills data. Defence-and-security sits right in the middle of that squeeze, because the embedded software roles it relies on are specialist by nature.
The pressure is set to grow. Skills England has flagged that Engineering is one of the occupations with the greatest additional employment demand between 2025 and 2030 Skills England's assessment of priority skills to 2030. For defence employers, that means the embedded software engineers you want today will be even harder to find tomorrow.
At the core, defence employers look for engineers who work close to the hardware: low-level C and C++, real-time operating systems, firmware, device drivers and board support packages. On top of that sit the things that make defence different from commercial software. Safety-critical and certification standards such as DO-178C and MISRA, model-based design, and cybersecurity built in from the first line of code all carry real weight. Security clearance, from SC to DV, often decides who can even start.
The roles span junior firmware engineers through to principal systems software architects, and the market is top-heavy. Entry-level hiring in Engineering has fallen to -19% while senior hiring sits at -10%, a nine-percentage-point gap a GOV.UK snapshot of entry-level hiring. That tells us defence teams are chasing experienced, cleared engineers while building fewer junior pipelines, which only tightens supply at the top.
There's also a retention challenge shaping who's available. Some 79% of UK technical professionals plan to change employers in 2026 Rise Technical's 2025/26 Insights Report, surveying over 500 employers and 1000 candidates. That churn is a risk if you're trying to hold a team together, and an opportunity if you can move quickly for the right person.
Start with the clearance reality. Because most engineering hires come from the resident labour force rather than international recruitment a GOV.UK review of professionals in IT and engineering, your pool for cleared defence work is smaller still. Map which roles genuinely need existing clearance and which can sponsor it, so you don't screen out capable people for no reason.
Then get specific. Separate the skills you must have, like a particular RTOS or DO-178C experience, from the ones you can train. Write job descriptions around real tasks, not a long wish list. And move fast: when nearly four in five technical professionals are open to a change, a slow process loses you the best engineers to employers who decide sooner.
When the right embedded software engineer is hard to find and quick to disappear, speed and reach matter. Our recruitment agent manages recruitment end to end for 8% on a successful hire, with no monthly fee and no upfront cost, through Reed.ai. There's no monthly fee and no upfront cost. If you're building a defence software team, tell us the role and let us find your shortlist today.
