Defence
The suppliers, products and customers in this chapter are in the landscape database, filtered to defence, with known spend and sources. The graph shows how they connect.
Sector overview and scope
Most of the defence digital estate is outside the scope of this survey. Operational military systems, weapons platforms, signals intelligence, and classified national-security systems are not appropriate targets for the CIC’s digital-sovereignty thesis. They have specialised governance, classified procurement regimes, and legitimate operational reasons for not being publicly inspectable. The survey limits itself to two narrow in-scope categories:
- Defence enterprise IT. The everyday productivity and administrative systems used by Ministry of Defence civilians, military personnel in office roles, and the wider defence-supporting organisations. These are functionally similar to the systems used elsewhere in central government and face similar sovereignty questions.
- Selected programme systems with civilian analogues. A small subset of defence digital programmes that touch civilian-government workflows (HR, pay, training records, logistics) where the technology is not classified and where an open alternative would be relevant.
Everything else is treated as Grade D, meaning replacement is not the relevant question: weapons platforms, command-and-control of operational forces, intelligence systems, and special-purpose secure communications. Sovereignty concerns there are addressed through procurement, security accreditation, and audit rights.
In-scope systems
| System | Vendor | Function | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|
| MoD enterprise productivity (M365) | Microsoft | Productivity, comms | C |
| Joint Personnel Administration (JPA) | Originally EDS, now in-house and SI-supported | Military pay, HR, postings | C |
| Defence Business Services systems | Various SIs and Oracle/SAP | Civilian HR, finance | C |
| Defence Learning Environment | Various | Training records, course delivery | B |
| Logistics and supply (DEFLOG, etc.) | SAP and bespoke | Defence logistics back-office | C |
Lock-in observations
Defence enterprise IT shares the same sovereignty concerns as central-government enterprise IT, namely Microsoft 365 ubiquity, ERP convergence on US vendors, and deep SI relationships, with the additional complexity that classification regimes constrain remediation options. A Defence Business Services civilian-pay system has no operational reason to be on a US-incorporated ERP, but the cost of moving inside a security-cleared environment is materially higher than for an equivalent civilian-government system.
Concentration is a recognised concern at the policy level. The Sovereign Capabilities Framework and successive National Cyber Strategy publications have flagged the strategic risk of relying on a small number of foreign-owned vendors for critical defence-supporting functions.
Replaceability assessment
Microsoft 365 in defence enterprise C
As in other sectors, this is not a realistic replacement target. The realistic options are procurement terms and open tools for specific uses alongside it.
Civilian HR / finance / payroll C
Migration to Oracle/SAP is under way, and replacement is not realistic in the foreseeable future. The practical measures are procurement terms and limiting further single-vendor concentration.
Training and learning systems B
This is the most plausible in-scope opportunity. Open learning-management platforms (Moodle, Open edX) are mature. Defence-specific training-record requirements add complexity but are not unique to defence. It could suit a focused engagement, although the cost of security clearance is likely to put it beyond the CIC’s scale on its own.
Hands-off and out of scope
Out of scope
Operational military systems: command and control, weapons platforms, mission-planning systems, secure communications. These are outside the CIC’s remit.
Intelligence systems: classified collection, analysis, and dissemination platforms across the agencies. The same applies to GCHQ-adjacent systems.
Specialised platforms: the Foundry-Palantir relationship in defence, AI for defence applications, and autonomous systems. These are policy questions and are not CIC engineering targets.
Sector summary
Top opportunities at sector level
None at CIC scale in this cycle. Defence enterprise IT shares sovereignty risk with central-government enterprise IT but operates inside security regimes that make engagement by a small organisation very difficult. The CIC’s plausible defence-adjacent role is contributing to the wider open-source ecosystem (training, productivity tools, identity) that defence enterprise users would benefit from indirectly. Direct engagement with defence buyers is not realistic.
Defence is included in the survey for completeness. It is not a near-term CIC sector.