A review of the Scottish Defence Procurement and Supply Chain Summit, Glasgow
Glasgow hosted a defining moment for the UK defence community on 20 May as BIP Solutions, in partnership with ADS Scotland, convened the inaugural DPRTE Scottish Defence Procurement and Supply Chain Summit (SDS). With a packed room of prime contractors, SMEs, academia, MOD officials and skills providers, the event reflected the critical role Scotland plays in supporting the UK’s defence readiness.
Opening the event, BIP Solutions Director of Public Policy and Research Grahame Steed framed Scotland’s place in the new strategic landscape. The 2025 Strategic Defence Review and the Defence Industrial Strategy that followed have “reset the framework within which we all operate,” he told delegates, and Scotland “sits squarely at the heart of that reset.” From the Clyde shipbuilding programme and the submarine enterprise at Faslane, to advanced sensors at Edinburgh, to the rapid expansion of the country’s space and digital sectors, the message was unambiguous: Scotland is not a regional contributor to UK defence – Scotland is at the strategic centre of it.
Six interlocking themes
The summit was deliberately structured around six interlocking themes: capability, resilience, competitiveness, sovereignty, SMEs and skills. Each is a critical building block in its own right, but it is in combination that they describe the architecture of a defence sector that is ready to deliver warfighting readiness alongside economic growth. The £50 million Scotland Defence Growth Deal – the centrepiece of a broader £432 million government investment – was the practical centre of gravity for much of the day’s discussion.
A clear signal from government
The summit opened with a video address from the Secretary of State for Scotland, the Rt Hon Douglas Alexander MP, who set out the government’s intent in unmistakable terms. The UK is delivering the largest sustained increase in defence spending since the Cold War, with a commitment to reach 2.5% of GDP by 2027 and 3% in the next parliament. Crucially, Defence is to be “an engine of growth,” with significant new opportunities flagged for small and medium-sized enterprises across the supply chain – including £2.5 billion in additional SME funding by 2028 and a new Defence Office for Small Business Growth.
That ambition was then translated from policy to practical delivery by Calum Taylor, Head of Place and Industry Skills at the Ministry of Defence, whose keynote unpacked the Scotland Defence Growth Deal in detail. Taylor was clear that the deal is “not just about platforms or programmes” – it is about the ecosystem around capability: advanced manufacturing facilities, a more visible supply chain for SMEs, and a refreshed skills pipeline running from school age to mid-career. The headline allocations include investment in a major advanced manufacturing campus, a new Clyde engineering and operations centre, and a £10 million Defence Technical Excellence Colleges (D-TEC) programme to strengthen the workforce of the future.
Honest conversation, practical answers
Two panels followed across the morning, each driven by candid, practitioner-led conversation rather than set-piece speeches.
The first – Defence as an Engine for Scottish Prosperity – drew together Brigadier Andy Muddiman (representing the Royal Navy), Calum Taylor (MOD), Mark Stead (Leonardo and ADS Scotland), Stewart MacPherson (Thales UK) and Rhona Allison (Scottish Enterprise), and was chaired by Emma Baker of ADS. The discussion ranged from the changing strategic picture in the North Atlantic and the rise of hybrid crewed/uncrewed maritime capability, to the practical mechanics of how Scottish Enterprise, MOD and the primes work together to build a stronger national supply chain.
The second – Prime Contractors Opening Doors for Scottish SMEs – got into the candid detail SMEs in the room had come for. Chaired by Coreen McCubbin, CTO of the National Manufacturing Institute Scotland (NMIS), the panel brought Babcock COO Gareth Hedicker, Hellios’s Didde Bjerglund-Martin, Denchi Group CEO Andrew Cowie and Castle Precision MD Yan Tiefenbrun together to talk through what really happens between an SME with a good idea and a prime with a category list. Babcock’s new SME Charter – and the candid acknowledgement that primes themselves need to change – was one of the standout moments of the day.
A confident defence community
The mood in the room was, throughout, unmistakably forward-looking. As Mark Stead put it during the morning panel, “no one anywhere in the world is believing that defence and aerospace is not a rapidly growing sector. So, we need to shout about it.” That confidence – paired with real, granular ambition on access, skills and supply chain visibility – defined the day.
The exhibition hall reinforced the point. With ADS Scotland as event partner, DCI as headline sponsor, and BAE Systems, Babcock, QinetiQ and Thales sponsoring meet the buyer sessions, the summit drew a fully representative cross-section of the sector – from primes and tier 1 organisations to SMEs and academic partners.
Looking ahead – and an invitation
This was the first Scottish Defence Summit, but it will return in June 2027. The Summit joins a growing portfolio of events under the DPRTE banner, including the UK National Defence Summit taking place in Manchester this October, and DPRTE Expo returning to Farnborough in March 2027. The dialogue continues online via the new DPRTE Community at dprte.co.uk, where a more detailed review of the Scottish Defence Summit event will appear shortly.
Over the next week DPRTE.co.uk will be publishing insights from each of the panel sessions and interviews with key speakers.
The Scottish Defence Procurement and Supply Chain Summit was delivered by BIP Solutions in partnership with ADS Scotland. To register early interest for SDS27 and to access ongoing coverage, briefings and supplier intelligence, visit dprte.co.uk
