Outlook With government elections in our key geographies in the coming 12-18 months, we anticipate that defence and industrial spending and capability reviews will feature heavily in the coming financial year. Having had several years of strong defence and security spending, and with the global security situation becoming more complex and worsening, we anticipate growth in the medium to long term, but it will take time for these reviews and spending plans to settle. In the short term, the number of consultants used in government departments may be squeezed and short-term needs may prevail, with platform and capability sustainment prioritised over long-term recaptialisation or new capability programmes. Understanding and supporting our customers will be key to success; as will partnering and collaborating to achieve better outcomes faster. We have opportunities to take our engineering and management consulting offer beyond our traditional markets, working across sectors and leveraging our global workforce. We expect the various postelection Defence Reviews to endorse national Defence plans and modernise forces against a 2040 planning horizon; and we anticipate amphibious and air defence capabilities interwoven with greater use of autonomous capabilities, to feature heavily in future strategies. We need to leverage all of our global campaigns to gain market share as these opportunities arise. “It will provide a capability unlike anything else known to defence … to deliver payloads in the most challenging terrain, reducing risk to the airframe, the payload and personnel on the ground.” Extract from the AWE’s independent product assessment report on the BMT SPARO autonomous drone delivery device. (below) 17
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