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14 October 2016

Brave new world for defence manufacturing

Hundreds of jobs at risk at GKN Yeovil

Last Friday GKN announced that it may have to “close or significantly downsize” its Yeovil site which employs 227 people. A statement from the company blamed the decision by Leonardo Helicopters to relocate all future A159 Wild Cat helicopter assembly away from the GKN Yeovil site to one of their own facilities. However, the story is more complicated than that and it raises the emotive debate of how much the Government is willing to invest in order to preserve the UK defence industry?

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15 July 2016

Full speed ahead for Successor

UK's nuclear deterrent looks assured with May as PM

On Wednesday evening, Theresa May was asked to write her orders for how the military should react in the event of nuclear war. Not exactly the easiest first few hours in a new job and probably cause for a sleepless night. However, the executives at the top of the UK defence industry will probably have slept a little more soundly as the future of Trident finally looks secure under her leadership.

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5 July 2016

Can aerospace & defence weather Brexit

Impact of lower GDP growth on the aerospace & defence industry

I am a firm believer that GDP growth is the most important driver behind the health of the aerospace & defence sector. A strong economy increases people’s propensity to travel, and defence budgets are set as a percentage of GDP. I acknowledge that the two sides of the sector are both affected by a number of other factors (the oil price, new technologies, geopolitical tensions, etc) and both industries are global. However, the Treasury’s projection that in two years’ time UK GDP will be 3.6% lower than if we had remained in the EU forces me to pause for thought as to the possible impact of Brexit on the sector over the long term.

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