Aerospace, Defence and Security

The 2025 Strategic Defence Review highlighted many of the strategic, financial, technological, and workforce-based challenges the UK defence sector is facing. At Digital Catapult, we believe that the practical application of deep tech innovation within the sector, is a key route to addressing and enabling the solutions to these challenges.

The UK defence sector can be a leading light in frontier technology deployment, attracting and retaining talent of all backgrounds, providing Front Line Commands with strength, adaptability and technological prowess. The sector can be a leader in strengthening supply chain resilience, building agile manufacturing capabilities and streamlining operations to be more efficient, reducing costs so that vital funding can be utilised in areas that need it most.

Deep tech can enable the capabilities that power the front line, ensuring that the UK can attain and sustain defence readiness. To achieve this, the armed forces require an underpinning defence industrial capacity that can meet this need. Digital Catapult will be a key player in driving this change, enabling the foundations to meet the Ministry of Defence (MOD)’s ambition to be a digital-first organisation.

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Digital Catapult has a long and successful history of working with the MOD, Front Line Commands and industry primes such as BAE Systems, Leonardo UK, Thales, Safran Landing Systems and Babcock.

We help companies to leverage the capabilities of frontier technologies, to drive innovation and create value from the deployment of advanced technological solutions within industrial environments.

Digital Catapult possesses an unrivalled access to the SME innovation ecosystem in the UK and has the convening capabilities and expertise to mobilise and engage this immense resource for the benefit of the UK defence sector. In addition, the future strategy of the ADS sector recognises the need for data to be exploited at both scale and speed. As with the wider UK industry, data needs to be accessed and deployed as a ‘strategic asset’ in conjunction with the technology game changers, adopted at pace. Digital Catapult has a successful track record in developing interventions set around open networks, interoperability and cybersecurity.

Digital Catapult supports the development of solutions to address market needs through bespoke services, including:

• Consultancy services – strategic advice and guidance on the adoption and deployment of deep tech solutions.
• Innovation services – acceleration programmes and fostering connections with pioneering SMEs with duel use technologies.
• Digital architecture and data discovery – gap analysis of existing data infrastructure to inform digital transformation strategies.
• Proof of concept (PoC) and prototype development leading to future exploitation – demonstrating the technical feasibility, functionality and business value of solutions.
• Testbed facilities – physical and virtual environments for experimentation and validation of solutions without disrupting front line operations.