From procurement gap to deployment gap: what it takes to get UK defence tech into service
We originally set out to produce our white paper, Voices of Defence Tech, detailing the procurement gap that exists in the UK’s defence tech sector. However, once we began interviewing the founders, operators and investors inside the industry, additional ‘valleys of death’ came to light.
A first contract is within reach. The UK has built plenty of ways in for new suppliers: innovation challenges, accelerators, small pilots and NATO's DIANA programme. The hard stretch comes after, in moving technology that works in a trial into capability that’s used, supported and paid for year after year; the deployment gap.
Why the deployment gap needs to talked about now
Money is on the move. The Defence Industrial Strategy commits the MoD to increasing its spending with SMEs by £2.5bn by May 2028. How much of that reaches homegrown SMEs with technology ready to deploy depends on what happens after the pilot.
Several valleys of death, faced at once
People often talk about a single "valley of death" between early funding and revenue. The people we spoke to describe several, and most SMEs face them one after the other:
- Money at the right time, in the right form. Defence budgets come in different "colours" for capital, running costs and software. The wrong colour can stall a project everyone wants.
- Commercial capacity on the buying side to let the contract.
- Someone with the authority to raise the problem in the first place, and the know-how to start.
- The handover to core. A pilot can run well for three years and then have no one to take it on, by which time the technology may be out of date.
- The complexity of selling into defence, from IP terms to cyber security.
- A real understanding of the user's problem.
Together, they explain why good technology and innovation run out of road.
Buyers need a capability they can field
A product is where it starts. What a buyer needs is something they can put to use with the least effort: integrated with what they already run, with training and support, and without adding to the workload of the people using it.
As one former military engineer told us, a busy desk officer buying 30 different things will take the path of least resistance, and may pay more when integration and training costs are low.
That means answering the questions a buyer will ask. Who will use it, and under what pressure? What does it add to their day? Is it secure by design, and does it meet the regulations that apply? If it adds friction, it won't get used, however good the technology is.
This works in both directions. Users and companies often don't talk enough, partly because people inside defence are wary that any conversation could be read as a commitment. Founders who get close to users early, through trials, exercises, accelerators or advisers who have done the job, build products that fit.
Three things that would help
When we asked what's missing, contributors to the Voices of UK Defence Tech white paper kept coming back to three practical changes:
- A clear demand signal. When requirements are vague, companies guess at what to build. A clearer statement of what defence wants to buy, and why, lets founders build for it and gives investors the confidence to back them.
- A catalyst for early funding. Fast, modest non-dilutive funding can unlock much larger private investment. One investor suggested government money could be a small share of the total, with private capital providing the rest.
- Contracts tied to progress. A commitment to buy once a product meets agreed conditions gives a small company the revenue line it needs to raise money and keep going.
Some of this is already happening. DIANA's Rapid Adoption Service, for example, lets NATO nations buy a graduate's product without running a fresh competition. Routes like this show what a faster path from pilot to programme can look like.
Three steps for founders
- Plan the route to programme when you start the pilot. Ask who would own it, which budget would pay for it, and what has to be true for it to move into core.
- Sell the whole capability. Map what sits around your product (integration, training, support, security) and show the buyer how little work it takes to adopt.
- Build a runway outside defence. Defence buys slowly. A strong commercial market keeps cash coming in while a programme lands, and someone checking the Defence Sourcing Portal part-time keeps you in the running.
Buyers, primes and founders are working on the same problem, and many of the fixes are already being tried. Voices of Defence Tech: Inside the UK Procurement Gap sets out what each of them can do, from the people doing the work. It's published on 25th November, with a launch panel in London.
Join the waitlist to get it 24 hours early.
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