Gain essential insights into the UK defence electronics talent market with our H2 2025 report. This guide explores how demand has evolved across defence and adjacent industries, highlighting the skills, market pressures and hiring realities shaping electronics recruitment in the second half of the year.
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Electronics (Defence UK) H2 2025 Talent Reports
Daanish Rauf
12th Jan 2026
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Key Highlights
- Market Trends: Demand for electronics engineers in H2 2025 remains strong, with power electronics and semiconductor expertise emerging as premium skill sets. Capabilities in SiC and GaN, power conversion and battery systems are particularly sought after, driven by overlapping demand from defence, EVs, semiconductors and industrial automation.
- Emerging Skills: Employers are increasingly prioritising system-level engineers rather than siloed specialists. Expectations now extend beyond schematic design to include firmware awareness, signal integrity, EMC, manufacturing constraints and design-for-manufacture. Simulation, digital twins and rapid prototyping are also playing a growing role in shortening development cycles.
- Hiring Challenges: The market continues to face a persistent shortage of experienced electronics engineers, especially at senior and principal levels. Clients report that senior engineers are stretched across design reviews, failure analysis and mentoring, which slows product development. Faster hiring cycles compared to traditional defence roles are offset by higher attrition, as engineers are actively targeted by competing sectors.
- Future Outlook: Demand is expected to remain elevated into 2026 as defence programmes intersect with growth in EVs, power electronics and advanced manufacturing. Organisations that can demonstrate real-world production impact, offer exposure to hands-on lab and test environments, and align speed-to-market with long-term reliability will be best placed to attract and retain scarce electronics talent.