Monthly Archives: December 2025

Beyond the battlefield: Britain’s drone strategy as a lever for economic growth

Lessons from the battlefields of Ukraine, combined with rapid technological innovation, have pushed drones firmly into the centre of UK defence policy. Yet, the implications of this shift extend far beyond military capability and the defence sector. By scaling domestic manufacturing and considering drone technology within wider growth strategies, there is potential to unlock growth across many sectors in the UK economy.

The pace of technological development seen in Ukraine has demonstrated how quickly drone capability can evolve when innovation is tested under real-world conditions. Low-cost drones, AI-driven autonomous systems, and advanced first-person view drones have challenged traditional defence strategies. For the UK, this has underscored the importance of building domestic drone capability to enhance national security.

To build these capabilities, the Ministry of Defence’s 2024 Defence Drone Strategy and 2025 Defence Industrial Strategy set out a vision that includes drones as a central component of military capability. This has been reinforced by the 2025 Strategic Defence Review, in which the government recognised that drones will be central to future conflicts and outlines its ambition to support innovation and growth in the drones sector.

For defence contractors, the implications are immediate. The government’s desire to deliver progress at pace on these strategies means that businesses that can demonstrate resilient and tested technologies are positioned to win contracts. However, the effects of this industrial strategy will be felt far beyond defence, with these moves creating large spillover effects to the civilian drone market.  Defence procurement can help firms scale production, de-risk investment, and move more quickly into civilian markets. In addition, many of the technologies that are useful as defence capabilities will assist in commercial settings. For instance, advanced first-person view drones will allow drones to be used more easily for law enforcement and infrastructure inspection. Counter-drone technologies also have clear commercial value, Systems developed to detect and neutralise hostile drones can be deployed to protect airports, prisons, critical national infrastructure, and other sensitive sites.

Together, these applications illustrate how defence-led innovation can unlock the sector’s wider economic potential – estimated by government-commissioned analysis to reach up to £103 billion by 2050, as we highlighted in our recent article. This demonstrates the scale of the commercial opportunities now emerging for businesses and investors, as technologies initially developed for defence are increasingly able to scale into regulated civilian markets, supported by a growing ambition within government to be a world-leader in drone technology.

However, despite this opportunity, risks remain. Defence procurement is politically sensitive and shifts in budget priorities over the course of a parliament could constrain investment. This means that businesses must continue to engage with government to reduce regulatory barriers to create a favourable regulatory environment. Businesses who engage with the government’s existing work on regulatory innovation and help government understand where other challenges exist will reap the benefits of the UK’s focus on the drones sector.

If you’d like to discuss the drones sector and related policy in more detail, please reach out to Jacob on Jacob.walsh@gkstrategy.com

Digital transformation in the health service

It’s all coming up digital: the government’s solution to the woes of the NHS

In November’s budget, the Chancellor unveiled a £300 million package of new capital investment for NHS technology. The package includes funding for digital tools designed to automate administrative tasks, streamline clinical workflows and give staff quicker, more reliable access to patient information. It is a continuation of a now-familiar message: digital transformation is at the heart of the government’s plans to modernise the health service and make it fit for the future.

The government also announced plans to create 250 neighbourhood health centres – an initiative aimed at ending the ‘postcode lottery’ of healthcare access. These centres are intended to operate as digitally enabled community hubs that will bring together GPs, nurses, dentists and pharmacists to provide end-to-end care and tailored support. As such, their success is tied directly to the government’s broader digitalisation agenda.

Construction of the centres will follow a ‘new approach’ between the public and private sectors, drawing on both repurposed estates and new-build sites. However, the physical infrastructure is only half the story. The model relies on shared digital tools that allow health, social care and other local services to work together seamlessly. This creates significant opportunities for public-private collaboration not only in the construction, but also in the delivery, integration and ongoing support of the digital systems that will underpin these centres.

This reframing of the NHS as a neighbourhood, rather than national, health service signals that ministers see a community-centred, digitally powered model as essential to curing the NHS’ longstanding issues. Ministers also believe it will facilitate its long-term viability, particularly in light of the growing pressure on the health service stemming from the UK’s rapidly ageing population and the growing number of people living with complex conditions.

Achieving high quality and consistent access to community services across the country will depend on harmonious digital capability across regions. Many NHS trusts still operate disparate legacy systems that limit interoperability, impede collaborative decision-making and prevent seamless access to patient data. For neighbourhood health centres to function as intended, central government must set out a clear, unified digital strategy that individual trusts can implement at pace, ensuring that local demographics and existing infrastructure are properly accounted for.

New data shows that national direction can drive adoption. NHS England reported that more than eight million people submitted a GP request online in October – up 21% from the previous month and 68% year-on-year. This increase demonstrates that when investment, professional willingness and patient buy-in align, digital tools can rapidly become embedded in everyday care. The rise of the NHS’s ‘digital front door’ offers a blueprint for what could be achieved with the new neighbourhood centres.

The government is betting that digitalisation will aid people’s access to the health service and improve patient outcomes. By pairing investment in digital infrastructure with the rollout of neighbourhood health centres, ministers are seeking to reshape both the sites of care and the systems that support it. Whether the strategy succeeds will depend not only on funding and planning, but also on collaboration with private sector specialists as a crucial partner to government in achieving its objectives.

Please contact Sophie Duley via sophie@gkstrategy.com if you would like to discuss the government’s ambitions for digitalisation in the health service in more detail.