Team UK
To ensure we offer international partners the best and most comprehensive Defence solutions, the DGP launched Team UK at Defence and Security Equipment International (DSEI) 2017 in London.
Team UK is the UK Government, Defence Industry and Academia working in partnership with international partners to deliver solutions. International customers benefit from a Team UK approach and a collaborative response to developing a solution. It serves as a highly efficient route to accessing the UK’s complete value chain. Being part of Team UK provides companies with wider access to market opportunities; they also gain from the advantages that close working deliver in terms of generating innovation.
Our Core Pillars
The UK Defence Solutions Centre (UKDSC) responds to international customers’ needs for innovative and tailored world-class defence solutions. Opened in March 2015 as an independent entity, it brings together the best minds from across defence in a pre-competitive, collaborative space to identify innovative and world-beating products and services. It aims to make the UK Defence industry more successful in international markets via:
- Better alignment with UK Government
- Facilitating collaboration within the UK value chain
- Identifying Innovation and investment from a broad range of sources
The UKDSC focuses on the pre-competitive phase, looking out across a 15-year horizon to understand customers’ long-term requirements, and uses this to help shape innovative and tailored products and services, leveraging the UK’s world-class defence capability, technology and skills. The UKDSC works closely with the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD), Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) and Department for International Trade – Defence and Security Exports (DIT DSE), the UK Defence industry and academia.
This is a world first approach to collaboration in defence solutions and we believe this integrated model will position the UK defence industry as a world-leading centre of innovation.
If you are interested in reading more, please visit the UKDSC website
A strengthened DIT Defence and Security Exports (DIT DSE) is working to enhance the UK’s ability to identify and prioritise investment in UK capability to grow defence exports. It will consist of three elements:
Enhanced Market Intelligence – a joint market analysis team has been established, ensuring greater coordination, cooperation and information sharing, and improving insight into both current customer needs and long-term strategic trends.
Industry involvement in prioritisation of opportunities – government and industry are working together, through an Industry Liaison Board, to prioritise the highest value opportunities for UK defence exports and develop engagement strategies to maximise the UK’s understanding of, and ability to meet, customer needs.
Additional Industry resource in strategic markets – Prioritisation of customers and markets underpinned by enhanced market intelligence allows us to identify where government can benefit from additional industry resource, creating joint teams overseas in key strategic markets.
For more information on the Defence and Security Organisation, please visit the DIT-DSE website or Contact Us online.
The UK’s defence value chain comprises all suppliers of equipment, support and technology for defence. It includes the enabling functions of government – ranging from test facilities to regulators – and the UK’s strong academic and science base in universities, research bodies and technical institutes.
This is a profoundly capable resource but, by its nature, a disparate one. The DGP has set out to harness the power of the value chain in a more coordinated way to enhance responsiveness, agility and competitiveness in meeting customer needs. A ‘Flotilla’ concept is being developed as an approach to provide an opportunity for UK SMEs to respond to a customer requirement in a more co-ordinated way. As a result, customers gain a more complete solution and SMEs benefit from increased market access.
Dute
The Value Chain Competitiveness Team also recognise the value of working with adjacent sectors as a way to find ‘Dual Use’ applications. This has led to the conception of The Dual Use Technology Exploitation programme. DUTE is a £10 million jointly funded project between government and industry developed to back the best new technologies and research that can have a ‘dual use’ in defence and civil sector businesses. DUTE clusters will help boost growth by linking UK manufacturers particularly SMEs, from the civil and defence sectors to draw on the best technologies of both to deliver game-changing solutions for customers. It is expected to create 180 jobs across 15 partners up to 2019.
To find out more please go to the DUTE website.
The UK Defence Sector depends on a highly-skilled, educated and flexible workforce capable of innovating, designing, developing and supporting technically complex systems and advanced manufacturing processes.
Systems Engineering Masters Apprenticeship (SEMAP)
To address the shortfall in defence sector skills the DGP has created a new Defence Apprenticeship standard, which has been developed by industry, trade bodies and academia and will deliver the new standard for a Level 7 Apprenticeship (equivalent to a Master’s degree) in advanced system engineering. The first 86 students started the new Systems Engineering Master’s Apprenticeship Programme (SEMAP) in January 2016. The apprenticeship standard will attract new graduates to the industry as well as up-skilling the existing workforce. More details are available here.
Defence Enterprise Export Programme (DEEP)
The second Skills programme that was announced at DSEi 2017 and launched at Farnborough International Airshow 2018 is the Defence Enterprise Export Programme, which aims to grow existing skills in export specialists and deliver an additional pipeline of export talent to the UK defence industry. It consists of three strands; a Career pathway – which includes mentoring, a Secondment and Loan Model, and an Academic pathway. The final strand takes shape as an Executive MBA which has been developed in partnership with Cranfield University. See the August News Bulletin for all the details on the launch at Farnborough Airshow 2018.
Work is also on-going to support national programmes such as DSF in areas which are enablers to exports for both government and industry.
If you’d like more information on any of the above or like to get involved, please Contact Us.