The Skills Gap

There is a growing gap between the skills needed to maintain national security and what is currently available to Defence organisations. The traditional approach of entry-level recruitment and lengthy training cycles will not be sufficient for advanced militaries. Rather, we need to recognise the defence workforce ecosystem and take bold steps to fully leverage it – increasing agility in how human capability is developed and managed. The UK Strategic Defence Review 2025 envisions a Defence that is ’whole force’, outcome-focused, and skills-based, harnessing industry skills in select areas alongside recruitment, retention, training and education efforts.¹

The problem extends across multiple countries. Even though the US military finally met recruiting goals in 2024,² it still faces a 28,000-person shortage in its cyber workforce.³ At the same time, European aerospace and defence companies struggle to find the skilled workers needed to leverage the substantial increase in European defence spending.⁴ As Leonardo, a major aerospace company, notes, “The Aerospace, Defence and Security industry in Europe, and even more so countries like Italy and the UK … are experiencing increasing difficulties in matching workforce demand with the right skill mix”.⁵ Though both government and industry share the pain and want to fix this, they have not been able to come together to find a workable solution yet.

In the UK, the problem is not a lack of potential talent. The UK alone has produced 1.7 million graduates in engineering and computer science since 2020,⁶ graduates who possess many of the key technical skills needed in defence. The problem lies in attracting individuals with the required skills to the sector with attractive and sustainable careers in service of a shared mission. As difficult as this challenge may seem, there is an emerging consensus on part of the solution: fully leveraging the potential of the defence workforce ecosystem, including establishing clear zig-zag career pathways between the public and private defence sector.

The Workforce Ecosystem

A workforce ecosystem is a network of organisations collaborating to achieve shared objectives, encompassing both traditional employees and ‘nontraditional workers’, such as gig workers.⁷ In defence, this ecosystem includes serving personnel, reservists, civil servants, contractors, and industry. These workforce types are managed independently because they have different terms and conditions, but some nations are now experimenting with a more ‘whole force’ approach to access the whole of the ecosystem in response to skills gaps. This ‘whole force’ approach offers greater flexibility in matching personnel to tasks, reducing vulnerability to skills shortages in any single area. It also presents attractive options to skilled workers who might not traditionally have pursued a defence career.

A defence workforce ecosystem already exists in any country with an advanced military, and different types of workers are aligned to different requirements. For example, jobs with high physical or legal risks and regulatory requirements require active-duty military service. This will include, for example, combat and war fighter roles. In contrast, roles involving new skills yet to be credentialed, or skills that are primarily developed through individual effort, may be best delivered through civil servants, contractors or through industry partnerships. This may include support and technical roles, such as AI and Cyber.

The increasing pace of change in technology and military capability demands new ways of thinking about the workforce ecosystem – taking a more dynamic approach to create flexibility and agility across the whole force.

Zig-Zag Careers Model

Fully leveraging the defence workforce ecosystem involves using different approaches to access needed skills.⁸ One promising solution is the adoption of a "zig-zag careers" model, which allow individuals to move between different roles and sectors within the defence ecosystem.^{9, 10} This contrasts sharply with the traditional entry-level military model, often described as "base-fed," where career progression is largely linear and internal. This new approach offers several key advantages:

• It enables attraction and retention of a wider talent pool, including individuals who might not traditionally consider a defence career.
• It enhances workforce flexibility, allowing for quicker adaptation to changing needs.
• It fosters knowledge sharing and cross-pollination of skills between different organisations and sectors.
• It allows defence to bring in more senior experts in knowledge areas that it did not anticipate needing 10 to 20 years ago, thus allowing defence to "de-risk" its strategic workforce planning.

The increased flexibility can also improve employee satisfaction and retention, mitigating the risk of skills shortages.

Building a High Performing Workforce Ecosystem

Defence is already well integrated with industry on a capability and supply chain level. To harvest the benefits of a workforce ecosystem and zig-zag careers model, defence must also leverage these relationships from a people and skills perspective. By doing so, defence will maximise agility and flexibility in accessing skills across the wider enterprise. Success will depend on building trusted partnerships with industry and ensuring shared recognition of skills, experience, training and qualifications. Next steps include:

• Addressing Barriers: Proactive efforts are needed to build trust between different parts of the ecosystem. The whole end-to-end process needs to be clearer and more efficient. Establishing clear lines of accountability, working through legal and commercial implications with clear decision-makers and governance is key.
• Encouraging Collaboration: A dedicated forum, including organisations from different portions of the defence ecosystem, could help facilitate dialogue and collaboration between defence organisations and industry, fostering trust and enabling a platform where sharing of people and skills across the Defence workforce ecosystem could commence.
• Developing a new doctrine and concept for planning and managing the workforce: This framework should include a shared or interoperable skills taxonomy, career pathways and approach to workforce sustainability for each Service. This will require careful consideration, taking into account terms and conditions of service (TACOS), workforce planning structures, pay and pension implications, as well as other allowances and health and safety responsibilities.
• Investing in Skills Development: Joint apprenticeship and education programmes build shared skills and capacity across the public and private sectors. A common approach to award and recognition of civilian qualifications needs to be developed.
• Sharing Data: Secure mechanisms for sharing data on skills demand and supply are essential for effective workforce planning and resource allocation. This should be enabled by shared access to technology and management information.
• Embracing Skills-Based Organisations: A shift towards skills-based organisations, using a common skills language, is fundamental to fostering seamless integration and collaboration within the ecosystem.¹¹

These approaches are being evaluated by the defence organisations of several countries, including the UK.¹² For example, the Australian Defence Force (ADF) has created several paths for lateral entry, including for individuals with scarce and critical skills in the civilian labour force, former serving personnel looking to re-join, and those with valuable experience in foreign militaries. By using a combination of reserve, fixed billet, and general assignment paths for these recruits, the ADF is using a rich workforce ecosystem to enable lateral entry to grow their overall defence workforce by a significant amount.¹³

As defence organisations across multiple nations confront critical shortages in skills and labour across public and private sectors, these same organisations are beginning to move beyond traditional workforce models. These moves can be seen across the recommendations in section 4.3, One Defence: People, Training, and Education, in the 2025 UK Strategic Defence Review.¹⁴ By fully harnessing the potential of its existing workforce ecosystem, defence can gain more value out of the workforce it already has, as well as unlock more novel solutions, such as zig-zag careers, to build the workforce capable of meeting the demands of the 21st century.