Make UK and Make UK Defence will host a joint pavilion at Advanced Engineering 2026, creating a shared platform for manufacturers, defence suppliers, technology developers, and industrial policymakers.
The pavilion will run during Advanced Engineering at the NEC Birmingham on 4 and 5 November 2026. It is designed to showcase UK industrial and defence innovation across an event that already spans aerospace, automotive, composites, electronics, advanced materials, automation, and manufacturing technology.
By bringing Make UK’s wider manufacturing remit together with Make UK Defence’s sector-specific network, the pavilion reflects the closer relationship now forming between national industrial capacity and defence readiness. Defence spending commitments are increasing across Europe, but delivery depends on the manufacturers, subcontractors, materials suppliers, and engineers able to turn programmes into equipment.
Advanced Engineering gives that discussion a broad technical setting. Technologies such as electrification, lightweighting, additive manufacturing, advanced materials, testing, robotics, digital design, and inspection rarely belong to one sector alone. The same supplier may support motorsport, aerospace, defence electronics, industrial automation, and high-performance manufacturing from the same capability base.
The pavilion is expected to give companies a route to demonstrate technologies, build relationships, and take part in conversations around supply chains, skills, net zero, and industrial strategy. Smaller manufacturers may benefit from a more visible route into defence and aerospace networks, where certification, security, quality, and procurement requirements can make entry difficult even when technical capability is strong.
The connection between production depth and defence capability has become increasingly direct. New activity around air defence production shows governments and primes looking beyond individual systems toward the manufacturing models needed to sustain output. Munitions, sensors, electronics, vehicles, composite structures, and autonomous systems all require supply chains that can scale without losing process control.
That requirement reaches well beyond procurement departments. Production capacity cannot be created quickly if the supplier base lacks machine tools, tooling, inspection equipment, skilled operators, production engineers, or working capital. Defence manufacturing is particularly exposed because low-volume, high-specification production does not always fit neatly with the high-throughput methods used in automotive or consumer goods.
A shared pavilion gives defence buyers, industrial suppliers, and technology companies a setting in which to identify adjacent capability. Automotive manufacturers bring process control, cost engineering, and production discipline. Aerospace suppliers bring certification, traceability, lightweight materials, and quality systems. Electronics manufacturers bring controlled assembly, test, component risk management, and miniaturisation. Modern defence programmes increasingly need all of those capabilities in combination.
Skills will sit close to the centre of the conversation. The UK continues to face shortages in machining, welding, controls engineering, production management, test engineering, and digital manufacturing roles. Discussing those shortages beside live industrial technology gives the debate more weight than broad labour market figures alone.
The pavilion will not remove procurement delays, investment gaps, or certification complexity. Its value will depend on whether participating companies gain practical contact with customers, partners, funders, and policymakers able to support real production decisions. Even so, the initiative reflects a maturing view of industrial strategy: defence readiness depends on a broader manufacturing base capable of producing, adapting, testing, and supporting complex equipment under pressure.
As UK manufacturers navigate weaker margins, higher energy costs, skills shortages, and international competition, advanced engineering events are becoming more than trade showcases. They are one of the few places where supply chain capacity, policy ambition, technical capability, and investment priorities can be tested in the same room.
