While factories and shipyards directly building defence equipment are the most obvious avenues of employment from this increase in spending, behind these jobs exists the need for a vast supply chain of subcontractors, logistics, components, and raw material suppliers. These jobs are defined as second-tier suppliers and beyond, accounting for the indirect employment generated by defence spending.
Notably, these jobs are spread across a wide variety of sectors, and a significant proportion will be services and support industries that utilise office and lab space. This is captured by the technical, financial, and other business services sector, and accounted for around 87,900 of the 244,000 jobs supported directly or indirectly by defence spending. These will include professional services, R&D providers, and IT services. In addition to this, spending from the MOD supports employment in logistics-adjacent industries, for jobs including warehouse operatives, transportation professionals, employees at wholesale firms supplying raw materials, and logistics support staff, such as forklift drivers. These sectors will all generate their own logistics footprints. Of the 244,000 total industry jobs, both directly and indirectly supported by MOD expenditure, 79,300 are manufacturing-related, accounting for 32.5% of total MOD-supported employment. While it is difficult to accurately estimate the full impact of spending on logistics employment, based on MOD estimates, we believe that some 29,800 jobs are directly or indirectly supported by MOD expenditure.