The Council of Gunsmiths and CORE Team surveyed 27 gun and drone manufacturers. 100% plan to expand — but no engineers.
The Council of Gunsmiths and CORE Team surveyed 27 gun and drone manufacturers. 100% plan to expand — but no engineers.
The Ukrainian defense industry is growing faster than the market can train people. This is the main conclusion of a study by the Council of Arms Manufacturers and CORE Team, which covered 27 manufacturing companies in the fields of UAVs, ground robotic systems, electronic warfare, electronics, and miltech software.
The scale of the growth is impressive: 74% of companies have increased their teams by at least 25% in the past year, almost half by more than 50%. No company plans to freeze hiring: 48% expect significant expansion, another 52% — moderate. 25 of 27 companies have open positions right now.
To attract people, 89% of companies have reviewed salaries in the last year — the typical increase was 10-20%. The result: no company said that hiring became significantly easier after the increase. It’s not about money. 44% of companies cite the lack of candidates with the right qualifications as the main barrier, and another 33% — fierce competition for the same limited range of specialists.
Despite popular belief, the defense sector does not always pay more: 42% of companies reported that they pay at or below other sectors. The salary premium exists, but only in narrow niches — embedded systems, electronics, electronic warfare, avionics, hardware engineering.
However, there is another trump card: 74% of companies use reservations as a benefit. For some candidates, this is more important than income level.
The biggest shortage is in engineering roles. 67% of companies are actively looking for design engineers, 48% call them the most difficult to hire, along with electronics engineers. The median time to fill a technical job is 1-2 months, with 30% of such jobs open for more than two months.
The main donors of personnel are mechanical engineering and industry (59% of companies) and IT (44%). That is, the defense industry is increasingly competing with technology companies for the same people. 48% of companies consider better interaction with universities necessary, 41% — more retraining programs.
«The sector is growing rapidly, but its further scaling depends on whether we can systematically train people for the real needs of production,» says Igor Fedirko, CEO of the Council of Gunsmiths.
