Type "women in defence" into Google, and the results tell you the sector is talking about this. The numbers tell you it isn't yet solving it: the 2026 report indicates there is 24.3% representation, against a public ambition to reach 30% by 2030, made by the Women in Defence Charter and supported by over 130 signatories.
That's the mission. The conflict is what happens next: organisations pour effort into attraction campaigns, sometimes celebrate a spike in female applicants, then watch progression stall a few years later. The pipeline doesn't just need filling. It needs holding.
This was the central theme at our recent Women in Defence UK Critical Mass Community session hosted by Matchtech, where Annabel Honour, Aidan Wood, Claire Collinson and Mark Crompton (VP Talent Attraction, Leonardo) unpacked what's working, what isn't, and what employers, recruiters and HR teams need to do differently.
We need more women
Defence isn't short of ambition. It's short of people to deliver it. ADS estimates increased spending could generate 50,000 additional jobs by 2035 if defence spending reaches 3% of GDP, rising to 85,000 at 3.5%. That's on top of a workforce already stretched thin.
Around 30% of the defence workforce is aged 55+. Factor in expected retirement levels, and the sector needs closer to 120,000 additional people over the next nine years, before any further attrition.
For every five people in UK engineering and technology roles, only one is a woman: 17%, against 56% in other occupations. It starts early. By 18, three in four people on an engineering pathway in England are already male.
Defence performs marginally better, with Women in Defence (WiD) Charter signatories reporting just over 24% female representation. However, while both industry and the Armed Forces are making gradual progress towards greater gender balance, representation within the Civil Service is moving in the opposite direction, despite it remaining the most gender-diverse part of the Defence sector.
The workforce gap and the gender gap aren't two separate problems. They're the same problem, seen from two angles.
Why just hiring more women isn't the whole answer
A theme returned to repeatedly throughout the session was inclusive infrastructure. It's a straightforward idea with significant implications: sustainable progress isn't the result of a single initiative. It comes when recruitment, policy, leadership behaviour and day-to-day culture all move in the same direction.
Recruiting more women without addressing what happens after they join tends to produce the same outcome.
Without visible role models, flexible working, equitable progression and inclusive leadership, organisations who recruit diverse talent may then struggle to retain.
Claire Collinsonmade this point directly when asked why progress in defence has been slower than expected.
"Organisations often focus heavily on attracting women while giving less attention to the underlying culture. If women don't see people like themselves progressing once they're in the building, recruitment gains don't stick."
What good practice actually looks like
The panel offered several concrete examples HR and leadership teams can benchmark against.
Leadership accountability. The strongest organisations treat gender equity as a business objective, not an HR side project. That means measurable diversity targets tied to leadership reward, succession plans that intentionally develop female talent, and gender representation reviewed alongside financial performance rather than separately from it.
Redesigning how roles are advertised. Aidan Wood highlighted Zurich Insurance's approach as the standout example from outside defence.
"Zurich changed the way vacancies were listed, defaulting to part-time, job-share or flexible options with full-time listed afterwards."
The panel discussed the reported impact: a significant rise in female applications overall, around a 20% increase in applications for leadership roles specifically, a 33% increase in women securing leadership roles, and roughly a 50% increase in total applications. The lesson wasn't a single clever tactic. It was that changing the infrastructure around recruitment opened opportunities to a wider pool.
Flexibility that reflects real lives. Mark Crompton explained that Leonardo provides employees with 12 additional flex days a year on top of annual leave, separate from compassionate leave, to help people manage personal commitments.
The panel was clear that flexible working isn't one policy. Different people need different forms of flexibility at different career and life stages, and defence and aerospace were pioneers in this area once before. There's an opportunity to lead again.
Structural, not individual, fixes. Reviewing pay and promotion data, enhanced parental leave, returner programmes and support for carers all featured as markers of organisations tackling the system rather than expecting individual women to navigate barriers alone.
Widening where talent comes from. One example shared during the session came from Babcock, where welding skills shortages led the organisation to look at transferable skills from outside engineering entirely, including recruiting from hairdressing, where dexterity and precision are already well developed.
It's a useful prompt for hiring managers to question inherited assumptions about where capable candidates come from and focus on the required skills needed for the role.
What's changing in UK employment law
Legislative direction of travel is likely to affect defence employers over the coming period, including stronger flexible working rights, Equality Action Plans that require organisations to act on gender pay gap data (rather than simply report it), enhanced menopause support, strengthened sexual harassment protections, and expanded family-friendly rights.
Together, these point toward retention and progression, not just entry-level access. HR teams should treat this as a signal to review policy readiness now rather than waiting for enforcement.
Where the biggest impact comes from
Asked what single change would improve outcomes for women entering defence, it was clear there were similar perspectives albeit from different angles.
Aidan Wood pointed to scaling approaches like Zurich's and securing visible senior leadership backing.
Claire Collinson called for removing unnecessary recruitment barriers and focusing on capability over traditional expectations of how a role should be performed.
Mark Crompton brought it back to inclusive infrastructure: connecting attraction, retention, progression, confidence and flexibility as one system rather than separate initiatives.
That's the resolution worth taking away. Defence doesn't have a shortage of good intentions. It has a gap between initiatives that look good on a slide and the infrastructure that makes them stick.