Hiring in defence is growing, and the numbers show it. 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, according to the MOD supported employment estimates for 2023/24. That builds on earlier momentum, when the total number of MOD-supported UK jobs reached 239,000 in 2022/23, an increase of 6% on the previous year, as the MOD estimates for 2022/23 record.
The sector is also drawing in fresh money and roles. 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, as GOV.UK reports on the defence dividend. Recruitment itself is climbing too: the defence sector continued to be an attractive employer, with surveyed recruitment growing by 17.8% in 2022, per GOV.UK's analysis of the sector's economic contribution.
Naval nuclear programmes run for decades. A single submarine class moves through design, build, in-service maintenance, refuelling and eventual decommissioning, so an engineer who joins early can spend an entire career on connected work. That continuity sits on top of a national skills picture that favours engineers for years to come.
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. For naval nuclear support, that means roles in mechanical, electrical, nuclear and systems engineering, plus the quality, safety and project disciplines that keep long programmes on track. The demand is not a spike. It is a long runway.
The talent is scarce, and employers feel it. 76% of engineering employers struggle to recruit for key roles, with technical and specialist sustainability skills topping the list, as the Institution of Engineering and Technology reports. Naval nuclear work adds its own hurdles: security clearance, site location and the need for genuinely specialist experience narrow the pool further.
So the question is not only who can do the work today. It is who can grow into the next phase of a programme that may still be running in 20 years. That changes how you hire.
Start with the whole career, not the vacancy. If a programme runs for decades, hire for trajectory: core engineering judgement, a track record of learning fast and the appetite to move between build, maintenance and decommissioning phases. Specialist nuclear experience is valuable, but it is rarer than the demand, so build a route for strong engineers to retrain into it.
Speed matters most when skills are scarce. The faster you can surface, contact and meet the right people, the less often a strong engineer slips to another programme while you wait.
We built Reed.ai to make specialist hiring fast and focused. We search a database of 15 million candidates, rank a shortlist in under 30 seconds, contact matched people in under a minute and can have an interview booked in under three minutes. Those are system speeds, and they give you more time to assess the engineers who can carry a long programme forward.
Our recruitment agent manages recruitment end to end for 8% on a successful hire, with no monthly fee and no upfront cost. You pay for the value of finding the right person and having the whole process managed for you. If you are building a naval nuclear support team for the long term, start a role with us today.
