A major defence and security event set to be held in Wales in September aims to equip businesses with a competitive advantage to get involved in defence supply chains.
Business in Focus, in partnership with ADS Group, headline sponsor General Dynamics Land Systems (GDLS) and the Welsh Government, is hosting Defence Security Resilience Cymru at ICC Wales in Newport on September 3 and 4.
The flagship event will bring together more than 2,000 attendees and more than 60 exhibitors and aims to connect buyers, suppliers and innovators across defence, security and national resilience.
It will be one of the first major defence events to be held in the UK after the publication of the UK Government’s Defence Investment Plan. In the plan the UK Government outlined £298 billion of investment across the next four years, including £15 billion of additional spending on top of last year’s Spending Review.
Speaking on the Defence Security Resilience Cymru podcast, Phil Jones, Chief Executive of Business in Focus, said:
“We are at one of those pivotal moments right now where Wales has an opportunity to be a major player in the defence, security and resilience space, and we should all be proud of that.”
Attendees at the event will include buyers, prime contractors, government, investors, academia, SMEs, innovators and international partners, Phil said.
The event is designed to ensure that businesses emerge with a competitive advantage to be active participants in the defence supply chain and to able to move at speed to take up opportunities, he added.
Richard Selby, Founder and MD of Pontypool-based Pro Steel Engineering, told the podcast how his firm first considered taking on defence contracts around 18 months ago, and had sought support from Business in Focus as well as building relationships with prime contractors and the MoD.
The key to unlocking opportunities within defence supply chains was to think about what the business already does and understand where that would fit in the defence market, Richard said, rather than trying to innovate specifically for the sector.
“There's truly a huge opportunity for everybody here,” he said.
Rhys Owen, Executive Director of GDLS, said the opportunities were not restricted to UK markets. Businesses which engage in defence supply chains are also in a strong position to explore European export opportunities, he said.
Primes such as GDLS work hard to support their own suppliers to meet required standards and qualifications, said Rhys.
“You get the best of innovation and speed from the SME, and you get robustness and resilience from the experience of the primes,” he said.
“It really works when these two come together, and that's how you get pace and that's where you get the skills and experience that are exportable into Europe and beyond.”
Find out more about Defence Security Resilience Cymru, being held at ICC Wales in Newport on September 3 and 4 2026, here: https://www.dsr.cymru/ and on the Defence Security Resilience Cymru podcast, here:
