NAD and CDS want capability delivered faster as DSEI 27 launched

Rupert Pearce and Chief of the Defence Staff (CDS) Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton have jointly launched DSEI UK 2027, under the theme Delivering the Integrated Force.

National Armaments Director Rupert Pearce has warned the UK and its allies have until “the end of 2030, at best, to deter and be ready to fight”.

DSEI UK, the flagship biennial defence exhibition, is expected to attract 65,000 visitors and up to 1,700 exhibiting companies to ExCeL London in September 2027.

National Armaments Director Rupert Pearce, and Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton KCB, Chief of the Defence Staff, have jointly launched DSEI UK 2027: Delivering the Integrated Force.

Mr Pearce, who is responsible for defence acquisition and industrial capability, warned that the UK and its allies have just over four years to prepare for conflict.

Rupert Pearce, National Armaments Director, said:

This is the time for us to focus on accelerated delivery. We have until the end of 2030, at best, to deter and be ready to fight. DSEI UK is a perfect time for the different stakeholders to come together and to figure out how we can do this together at pace.

Setting out his approach to building up the UK’s defences by creating “an innovation engine which horizon scans for new technologies and capabilities, advances them and matures them”.

We need to build our core capabilities in a way which allows them to be infused with future innovation.

That is the perfect discussion to have at DSEI UK with all the stakeholders together: military, industry, procurement agencies, innovators and the finance community… If we get that right at DSEI UK we will position the UK Armed Forces in a vanguard of being the most innovative armed forces in the world.

CDS and Mr Pearce have issued a clear challenge to the defence sector, across UK and allied nations, as plans for DSEI UK 2027 were unveiled.