UKTI Defence & Security Organisation
UKTI Defence & Security Organisation (UKTI DSO) focuses on building and maintaining relationships with overseas governments. Defence and security is a growth market with potential for many UK companies to utilise their technologies, skills and knowledge to export successfully.
UKTI DSO works with industry and overseas governments to ensure UK equipments, products and services are promoted in the best possible way and that the overseas customer's requirements are appropriately met and supported by industry through life. UKTI DSO staff provide specialist export advice and practical assistance to the two sectors, working closely with both industry and the Ministry of Defence (MOD) to provide the essential government–to–government dimension to company–led marketing campaigns.
UKTI DSO operates three regional directorates (see map below), which provide government support and advice to British defence and security companies and help with new business. They are experts in their particular geographic areas and are the first point of contact for overseas customers and for UK companies for all matters relating to sales of defence equipment and services and support specific industry–led overseas marketing campaigns.
There is also a Security Directorate to provide specialist support to companies within the security sector and a Business Development Directorate which deals with events, exhibitions, provides market analysis and specific support for small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
UKTI is a global organisation with its headquarters in London. The network employs around 2,300 staff and advisers in the UK and eighty two UK overseas embassies, high commissions, consulates and trade offices. There is a UKTI office in each of the nine English regions with over two hundred international trade advisors (ITAs). In Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, services are delivered in co-operation with the respective national development agencies.
UKTI DSO work along–side the UK regional ITAs who advise and guide UK companies on their route to export and help them to use the full range of UKTI DSO services. UKTI DSO also engages closely with industry bodies and trade associations to help the industry.
Defence and Security
The defence and security sectors are an important part of the UK economy, contributing billions of pounds in exports each year, and providing tens of thousands of jobs in the United Kingdom.
Defence and security companies are a very significant part of the UK's high value manufacturing sector and our research and development (R&D) base. These companies offer solutions to the legitimate defence and security needs of countries around the world, allowing these countries to protect their citizens, and building capacity to tackle insecurity around the world.
Defence exports provide an important contribution to MOD objectives in maintaining key sovereign capabilities in production capacity and engineering skills which are vital for the UK defence industrial base. In recent years the UK has consistently achieved around a 20 per cent market share of the global export market and surpassed even this in 2007, when the UK was top global defence exporter, winning an unprecedented £10 billion (US$19bn) of new business and achieving a 33 per cent global market share.
Where We Operate
