"There's optimism on the part of the government, there's optimism on the part of business, and there is this, kind of, leaning in to [say] 'OK, we're going to solve this problem together,'" Fiona Walters, CEO of Serco's UK and Europe business, told a finance summit at the Farnborough International Airshow.
Fiona Walters on optimism, speed, and British distinctiveness
Walters used her platform at Farnborough to draw a contrast between U.K. and U.S. approaches to private capital in defense tech. She argued that what the U.K. could learn from recent U.S. experience is "a sense of enthusiasm to move quickly—and to persist even when things get hard." Walters cautioned that the U.K. should not try to become the U.S.: "We're not going to become the U.S., and nor should we necessarily want to be," she said, adding that the challenge is "how do you harness that optimism around actually being able to create and do something, to evidence it, and do it quickly." Walters’ company is a major government contractor managing services across health, IT, transport, justice and defense—an operational vantage point for observing how capital and procurement interact.
Joe Cassidy on reforms, pension capital, and the "Valley of Death"
Joe Cassidy, KPMG UK's head of technology, media, and telecoms, framed the problem in regulatory and capital-structure terms. He said "there is no shortage of capital in the UK" but acknowledged a persistent gap at later-stage funding: "The problems that we've had with the Valley of Death, so call it Series C capital, broadly speaking—those are true in every sector. There isn't a risk appetite for that investment." Cassidy pointed to attempts to unlock long-term institutional capital through "the Mansion House reforms and the Edinburgh reforms" and urged clearer storytelling about defense's role in industrial strategy: "I think we haven't told the story, the investor story, as well as we might about the industrial strategy, how important defense is in regard to that, how resilience links to it, and what the spillover effects are for the broader economy and growth."
Stuart Foster on talent, universities, and business pivots
From the banking side, Stuart Foster, Barclays’ head of Coverage, UK Corporate Bank, argued that capability exists in the U.K. to support a larger defense tech sector. He noted cross-sector willingness to adapt: across AI, cyber, and advanced manufacturing, "there's a real willingness to pivot their business models to defense." Foster added, "So if we have the universities, we have the talent, we have the people, we have the will…it just feels that there's an enthusiasm backed by capability and talent should we create the right framework and environment to unleash that."
NATO's industrial concern and transatlantic capacity pressures
The panel's comments came as NATO leaders are calling for expansion in Europe's industrial base. The brief reported that the call is driven in part by "concerns that U.S. companies will be unable to produce enough weapons to restock Pentagon arsenals depleted by the Iran war to build up European militaries looking to deter Russia." That framing places the debate about private capital in defense alongside an explicitly strategic imperative: Europe must grow productive capacity while private finance and regulatory reforms determine how fast and at what scale new capabilities can be fielded.
State and local pitches at Farnborough—and a U.S. delegation sighting
Farnborough also showed how regional economic development and defense industrial expansion are intertwined. Defense One spotted a Congressional delegation including Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., and William Kimmitt, the Commerce Department’s undersecretary for international trade. Meanwhile state and local governments sent delegations to woo business: booths represented California, West Virginia, Missouri, Mississippi, Illinois, Alabama, Arkansas, Texas and Ohio.
Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb described his aim to "bring more defense companies into the city," saying the "biggest choke point right now, and the big reason why I'm here, is telling the Cleveland story and putting Cleveland in the conversation." North Carolina commerce secretary Lee Lilley said nearly half of the state’s pipeline projects are foreign direct investment and argued that despite a "little chaotic and unsettled" international environment, "companies want to be located in the United States." Lilley highlighted a mix of legacy and startup firms in the state—naming Boeing, Airbus, Lockheed Martin, and companies such as Boom Supersonic and JetZero—and noted JetZero recently "broke ground (and secured $3 billion in financing) on a new sprawling campus on 600 acres in Greensboro, N.C."
What this means for U.K. investors, universities, and state/local governments
- U.K. investors and pension funds: Cassidy's remarks signal that unlocking late-stage "Series C" and pension capital will be a slow, regulatory-heavy process; expect continued emphasis on reforms like the Mansion House and Edinburgh initiatives as the primary levers to mobilize that pool.
- Universities and talent pools: Foster’s comments suggest universities and technical talent are viewed as ready to support defense pivots—the bottleneck is creating frameworks that let those capabilities move into defense markets quickly and visibly.
- State and local governments in the U.S.: Mayors and commerce officials attending Farnborough are actively pitching local sites and incentives—Cleveland’s Midline business district and North Carolina’s mix of legacy OEMs and deep-pocketed startups show subnational actors are positioning to capture both established and emergent defense supply chains.
The Farnborough conversation laid out a pragmatic sequence: mobilize optimism and speed where possible, fix regulatory and pension-fund frictions where necessary, and match university talent with commercial intent. The unresolved question is whether the U.K. can convert its institutional strengths into the same scale of investor confidence that some panelists say has energized U.S. defense tech—without becoming the U.S. in approach or culture.
