The Department for International Trade’s UK Defence and Security Exports (DIT UKDSE) has released its annual export statistics for the UK defence and security sectors, covering data from 2020. The data is based on UKDSE’s voluntary survey of defence export contracts and the compilation of security sector data by Frost & Sullivan.
The latest export statistics confirm that the UK remains the second largest global defence exporter after the USA on a rolling-ten year basis. Additionally, on a 3 year basis average annual UK defence export orders hit £10.96bn in 2018-2020 . The UK’s largest defence export markets remain Europe, North America and the Middle East, and military aerospace remains the core market for the UK.
Turning to the UK security sector, export sales reached £7.95bn in 2020, up from £7.2bn in 2019, which helped the UK retain its place as the world’s third largest security export. The European market remains by far the most significant market, accounting for 44% of sales, and cyber security products and services continue to count for over half of all security export sales.
