Building the human capacity behind national defence.

Modern defence capability depends on far more than conventional combat personnel. It rests on a broad professional workforce — the people who maintain complex equipment, secure networks, deliver medical care, run supply chains, build infrastructure, manage data and lead institutions.

Two long-term shifts are changing the picture. Demographic change — including ageing populations and smaller youth cohorts in many countries — can make it harder to recruit and retain personnel at the scale defence planning assumes. At the same time, technological transformation is increasing the share of roles that need specialist skills, often in direct competition with the civilian economy.

The result is a workforce question as much as an equipment question: how can a government recruit, develop and retain the right people, in sufficient numbers and with the right skills — lawfully, transparently and sustainably?