Source · Select Committees · Defence Committee
Recommendation 13
13
Accepted
Implement a holistic approach to recruit and retain a skilled GCAP defence workforce.
Conclusion
Building and maintaining a skilled workforce will be crucial to GCAP’s success. With the defence industry facing fierce competition from other sectors for skilled workers, it is essential that a holistic approach is taken to recruitment and retention. GCAP offers a welcome opportunity to attract new talent into the UK’s combat air industry, but the focus cannot just be on the recruitment of new apprentices into industry primes. (Conclusion, Paragraph 91)
Government Response Summary
The government details proactive measures to grow the skills pipeline, including co-funding the FCAS Technology Initiative R&D, working with academia and STEM initiatives, and efforts to retain staff and generate skills across the supply chain.
Government Response
Accepted
HM Government
Accepted
The Committee is right to emphasise the breadth of skills required to ensure GCAP’s success. Sustaining and growing the skills base is not only critical for delivery of the programme; it underpins the wider Defence Industrial Strategy and growth mission. Ensuring GCAP is enabled by the skills and technologies required has been a priority for the Department and our industry partners since the programme’s inception. This is why, together, we launched and co-funded the FCAS Technology Initiative R&D programme. skills. the programme’s future skills requirements and options to meet them. We are proactively growing the skills pipeline, working with academia and wider Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) initiatives, communicating the exciting and purposeful career opportunities GCAP presents to attract our future workforce. Recruitment of the right skills is essential, but so too is their retention, which is why we are working hard to ensure we retain a positive and inclusive culture. The MOD and our core industry partners recognise the importance of generating skills in the supply chain, which now includes hundreds of organisations, from universities to small and medium-sized enterprises.