Vision on Defence-Related Skills for Europe Today and Tomorrow

This report presents the European defence industrial skills landscape as part of a 12-month project on developing a common skills strategy for the European defence sector. It identifies the skills requirements of the European defence sector, and highlights the skills that will be needed in future, while also identifying the defence market dynamics and technological development trends shaping these requirements. These factors help highlight the drivers of changes in skills needs and scarcity levels, also captured here. The report then identifies defence-related skills gaps and shortages and highlights challenges with different sets of skills, in different defence domains (air, naval, land, space, cyber, complex weapons) and across the stages of the defence equipment life cycle (e.g. design engineering, manufacture, maintenance, disposal). The report also presents the general features of the European defence industrial skills supply, mapping the existing and planned EU, national, regional and industry-led policies, programmes and initiatives aimed at the sustainment and development of defence-related skills. Strengths and gaps in existing education and training initiatives are also identified. The report concludes by drawing out the implications of the industrial skills landscape for the European sectoral skills strategy to be developed in the second phase of the project.