Reforming Defence for an Age of Global Uncertainty
Illy Andrews, Vice President of Defence & Asset Solutions
| Amentum
Without reforms to the way capability is procured and delivered, the UK risks spending more on defence without meaningful improvements to readiness and resilience.
As geopolitical shocks and regional conflicts continue apace, the world faces an increasingly complex array of evolving threats. The UK is not alone in facing simultaneous challenges across multiple domains - state-based adversaries, cyber-attacks on our critical infrastructure, and the weaponisation of new technologies. To tackle this, demand for increased defence spending has been growing and we have seen nations around the world respond in different ways. The British government’s commitment to spending 3 per cent of GDP on defence, rising to 5 per cent in 2035, shows the nation is serious about its future defence capabilities. However, spending more alone will not deliver the transformation our Armed Forces require. At the heart of genuine defence reform lies the perennial challenge of delivering more capability for every pound spent. This demands fundamental changes to how we procure, sustain, and modernise our defence capabilities.
We saw a number of recommendations in the Strategic Defence Review to help achieve this. The creation of a National Armaments Director will play a critical role in this and that person will be pivotal in bringing together industry and government across the defence domains in a way that could really transform efficiency in defence procurement and, in turn, the way industry delivers for government. By building genuine interoperability, we will move away from a transactional relationship to one of collaboration, where industry is viewed as a true partner and part of our defence capability. Engaged earlier and able to scale as required, industry can help unlock innovation, shorten delivery cycles, and provide better value for the taxpayer - enhancing lethality and resilience.
International best practice demonstrates what is possible. Across the world, industry has demonstrated the ability to sustain and modernise complex fleets, integrate emerging technologies, and deliver logistics solutions that enhance readiness while saving millions. For example, in the United States, Amentum has supported global-fleet sustainment contracts that have delivered improved aircraft availability, while modernising transport aircraft to extend service life and reduce downtime. Elsewhere, multi-domain autonomy projects have fused data from unmanned aerial and ground vehicles into single command networks - dramatically improving decision-making speed and operational awareness.
On the logistics front, re-engineering supply chains and applying predictive analytics have yielded tangible benefits: millions in cost avoidance, faster deployment times, higher mission readiness rates and increased resilience. These are not theoretical efficiencies - they are proven results delivered through close public-private partnerships.
The UK can learn from such successes and create a system where procurement processes incentivise outcome-based contracts, where payment is tied to improved availability and resilience, reduced lifecycle cost, and faster capability upgrades. Such changes could create a sustainment model where industry is fully integrated into the force support ecosystem, working alongside the MoD to anticipate needs rather than merely react to them. None of this requires revolutionary change, but it does demand a fundamental shift in mindset: from buying “things” to buying “capability outcomes,” from transactional contracting to collaborative solution-driven delivery, and from isolated stovepipes to interoperable, agile networks.
If the UK wants an Armed Forces truly fit for the future, procurement reform cannot be a footnote - it must be a national priority. By adopting alternative delivery models and deepening government–industry interoperability, Britain can ensure that its Armed Forces are not only equipped for today’s threats but ready to outpace tomorrow’s.
Meet the Amentum team at DSEI UK from 9th - 12th September 2025, stand S13-110.
