Key Skills and Competences for Defence

The pressure on defence budgets across Europe, has reduced confidence that the large procurements of yesteryear, that supported the diversity of the skills in the EDTIB as well as the volume of skills, will continue into the future. The increasing complexity and cost of major procurements means that the interval between one platform and the next is increasing, making it harder to sustain the key skills and competences in the industrial base during the interval period. In some areas, the demographic of the defence workforce in industry and government is tending towards the older generation and fewer graduates are choosing defence as their career area. In certain areas the combination of these factors can lead to the erosion of critical skills. The Heads of State meeting at the European Council in December 2013 acknowledged the problem of disappearing skills and know-how and "stress[ed] the need to further develop the necessary skills identified as essential to the future of the European defence industry."