Walk into any government digital strategy session and you'll hear nothing but ambition for the UK’s future in technology. From citizen-facing platforms to secure defence systems, the government wants digital transformation that is faster, smarter and more resilient. However, what you are less likely to hear is a plan for which teams will build it, deliver it and see it through to completion.
This pressure is being felt acutely in defence and aerospace, where digital, cyber and data capability has to meet not only delivery deadlines, but security, resilience and operational demands.
There are currently 11,000 unfilled cyber security positions in the UK, and government sectors such as defence and aerospace are competing with organisations across the country, half of which are reporting a shortage even at basic technical level. Plus, with widespread AI adoption, demand will grow, not slow.
Historically, government has often brought in project teams to deliver specific pieces of work, only for those teams to leave once the contract ends. Months or even years later, when the project needs to be revisited, extended or picked up again, a new team is brought in and has to spend valuable time reconstructing the context, decisions and technical knowledge that left with the previous supplier.
This slows delivery, duplicates effort, and drains public money that could be better spent building lasting capability. In defence, the cost climbs higher. Lost knowledge weakens continuity, and it makes already complex programmes harder, slower and riskier to restart safely and securely. Every reset is a security exposure as much as a budget line.
This is becoming a widely acknowledged problem, and a hard one to see clearly. In 2024, the Cabinet Office pledged to cut consultancy spend in half and save £1.2 billion by 2026 using tighter sign-off and a new commercial framework. Eighteen months later, the National Audit Office stated the Treasury still lacked reliable data on what departments actually spend on external resource, let alone ways to reduce this cost.
For over 25 years, we have delivered specialist expertise across complex, security-sensitive environments, including the Royal Navy.
By keeping security-cleared specialists embedded across complex programmes, from C5ISR and information systems to engineering governance and assurance, we help protect the knowledge that too often disappears at the end of a contract. That continuity is what turns short-term delivery into long-term resilience: people who know the mission, understand the constraints, and can keep critical work moving without starting from scratch every time.
At Carbon60 Project Services, we think it’s time for public sector professional services to change for the better: leaner, more efficient and better value at a time when public money is stretched thin. That means moving the goal from finishing a contract to building capability that stays.
Our 4 pillars:
Those pathways aren't the headline, they’re the mechanism. They enable capability that compounds over years rather than resetting with every new supplier. A security architect who was there for the last transformation programme is worth more than three who weren't, no matter how good the handover notes are.
Public sector delivery has spent a long-time measuring success by spend controlled and contracts let. Given the scale of the skills shortage now facing government, and the very real risk that 2026's savings targets are met on paper while capability quietly erodes underneath, it’s time to measure something else: How much expertise is still in the building a year after the project ends.
Ultimately, this is what successful transformation depends on - turning ambition into operational capability that lasts long after the programme has ended.
Carbon60 Project Services is sponsoring DigiGov Expo at ExCeL London on 23 and 24 September. We would love to have a conversation, so please come and find Nat Jackson and I at stand I24 on either day of the event.