Blogs

Domain: Air
Years of experience in defence: 25+

Brief summary of your career prior to Futures Lab:

I am an Aeronautical Engineer with extensive career experience in defence consultancy and operational analysis. This work has been in support of many defence research projects and acquisition business cases, mostly on air and weapons programmes. I have a broad systems engineering skillset and immediately prior to Futures Lab, spent six years as the Project Engineer for the 5m Wind Tunnel in Farnborough.

What does your role involve?

I engage with defence clients to understand their emerging opportunities, challenges and needs. I help the client author a compelling Statement of Requirement (SOR), which is subsequently placed as a Futures Lab task using the EDP construct. I help the client identify completed output or other ongoing activities that can provide a complementary and coherent perspective.

What aspect of your role is exciting, rewarding, or interesting?

I engage with defence clients to understand their emerging opportunities, challenges and needs. I help the client author a compelling Statement of Requirement (SOR), which is subsequently placed as a Futures Lab task using the EDP construct. I help the client identify completed output or other ongoing activities that can provide a complementary and coherent perspective.

How important to you is teamwork? Are there any other factors at play which are crucial to you being successful in your role and key in the success of Futures lab?

Teamwork is essential to my own role and the success of Futures Lab. I view effective knowledge exchange and a sharing culture as essential to achieve situational awareness. This is the foundation pillar in developing the right task definition, ultimately helping to minimise duplication and to maximise the exploitation value to both the client and the supply chain ecosystem.

How are you helping embed change in your domain?

The air domain is rich with ongoing innovation and change in sustainability, autonomy, high value manufacturing and engineering best practice. The goal is to optimise resources and capability programmes against the dynamic backdrop, in order to stay ahead of our adversaries within the limits of the defence budget. My role in Futures Lab tasks is helping defence clients and suppliers realise change in a collaborative manner, drawing on non-defence sectors to increase the tempo.

Can you provide an example of a task you’ve led on and how this has helped to improve military capability for the MOD?

One example prior to Futures Lab was in the Weapons Integration UK (WIUK) research portfolio, where I contributed to several studies, including the Industry Lead role on a task to define the integration principles for Network Enabled Weapons. As noted by a speaker at a recent RAeS Conference, the outputs and lessons from WIUK are still an important reference point to improve the performance, time, cost and risk aspects for all complex weapon related integration.

Why did you choose to pursue a career in defence?

Defence has a strong family background and whilst completing my degree, I recognised I would enjoy helping to develop future concepts and keep our military capability world class.

What do you most enjoy about your job?

The opportunity to learn and exploit emerging technologies.

What is the most interesting/exciting task you’ve led on and why?

My time as Project Engineer for the 5m wind tunnel was exciting. I was able to develop an investment roadmap with clients and stakeholders to secure funding, helping to sustain it as a world-class facility with utility well beyond my career horizon.

If you weren’t in your current role, what would you be doing instead?

With my current employer, I would be a Technical Lead or Chief Engineer across one or a portfolio of defence projects. If I were to have pursued a radically different career path, I think I would be involved in sports science or coaching elite athletes.

If you could provide any advice to aspiring colleagues, what would it be?

Enjoy the challenge. Identify early in your career whether you are a big picture thinker, a deep specialist or a perfectionist, and seek out roles that give you opportunities to develop accordingly.

What has been your career highlight?

My work on the sortie generation modelling for aircraft embarked on the QE class carriers long before these capabilities were procured and entered service.

What is the best advice you have received?

To remain involved in client centric projects.