Demand is strong and talent is scarce. In 2025 there were 55,000 unfilled long-term vacancies in UK manufacturing, costing the economy £6bn in lost output every year, according to Make UK's Industrial Strategy Skills Commission Report 2025. That gap sits on top of rising defence demand, which is adding orders and headcount at the same time.
Defence is a big part of the story. MOD expenditure with industry supported a total of 272,000 direct jobs in 2023/24, an increase of 11% compared to the previous financial year, as reported by the MOD supported employment estimates for 2023/24. The year before, the total number of MOD-supported UK jobs reached 239,000 in 2022/23, an increase of 6% on the previous financial year, according to the MOD supported employment estimates for 2022/23.
Fresh investment keeps the pressure on. More than 1,700 new jobs are being created across the UK defence sector following at least £1.4 billion in foreign direct investment committed since July 2024, according to GOV.UK's defence dividend announcement. When defence orders land, plants need people fast, and that reshapes hiring priorities across the whole manufacturing floor.
Skilled technical roles sit at the centre of it. Manufacturers rank skills shortages (75%), recruitment (36%) and talent retention (32%) as their top barriers to growth, according to Barclays Corporate's research on the skills shortage in UK manufacturing. In other words, the people problem is now the growth problem.
Engineering is the sharpest pinch point. 76% of engineering employers struggle to recruit for key roles, with technical and specialist sustainability skills topping the list, according to the Institution of Engineering and Technology's 2025 skills statistics. The defence sector competes directly for these same people, and it has been an attractive employer: surveyed recruitment grew by 17.8% in 2022, according to GOV.UK's report on the defence sector's economic contribution.
This is a long-term trend, not a blip. Occupations in Digital, Adult Social Care, Construction and Engineering have the greatest additional employment demand between 2025 and 2030, according to Skills England's assessment of priority skills to 2030. So plants hiring for defence work today are bidding for talent that will stay in short supply for years.
Start with speed. When 76% of engineering employers struggle to recruit for key roles, according to the IET's 2025 skills statistics, the best technical people move quickly. A slow process loses them. Define the role tightly, agree who decides, and book interviews within days, not weeks.
Then widen your reach. With 55,000 long-term vacancies open across manufacturing, according to Make UK's 2025 skills report, you cannot rely on the same local pool everyone else is fishing in. Look at adjacent sectors, returners and people with transferable technical skills, and make security clearance and compliance steps clear from the first conversation so defence-ready applicants do not stall.
When orders land, you need to reach scarce engineers and machinists before they are gone. An AI recruitment agent that searches 15 million candidates can surface and rank a shortlist in under 30 seconds, contact matched people in under a minute, and book an interview in under three minutes, so a slow process no longer costs you the best technical hires. 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. If defence orders are reshaping your plant's priorities, start a role with us today.
