From welders and engineers to data scientists, arms makers scramble for skills amid record spending

Shipyard sparks light up the late shift in Alabama; in Germany’s Lüneburg Heath a new artillery plant hums to life; in Dublin, a startup pitches an AI tool to fuse sensor feeds in real time. Across the transatlantic defense economy, the most prized strategic asset is no longer a piece of hardware. It’s people—welders who can work to submarine tolerances, systems engineers who can tame sprawling supply chains, and data scientists who can make sense of torrents of battlefield data.

The hiring surge is the visible edge of a wider rearmament cycle. NATO allies have pledged to lift defense and security-related outlays to 5% of GDP by the mid‑2030s, with 3.5% earmarked for core military spending. Global military expenditure hit a record high last year and continues to climb, reshaping industrial policy from Warsaw to Washington. For industry, the new target is translating into multi‑year orderbooks—and a scramble for talent across blue‑, grey‑ and white‑collar roles.

The New Order Books, The New Bottlenecks

At Rheinmetall’s new ammunition campus in Unterlüß, northern Germany, managers talk less about machines than manpower. The line can be automated; the tooling can be bought; the schedule, at least on paper, can be met. What’s harder is finding and keeping the technicians—toolmakers, machinists, explosives handlers—who can ramp shell output from pilot batches to sustained mass production. Similar dynamics are playing out in Poland, where fresh investments and technology partnerships aim to localize the production of 155mm rounds.

On the other side of the Atlantic, U.S. primes are also in expansion mode. Rocket‑motor facilities in Arkansas and new advanced manufacturing sites in Alabama are designed to shorten production cycles for interceptors, cruise missiles and tactical rockets. Headcounts are rising, as are signs in factory windows for welders, pipefitters, CNC operators and non‑destructive testing specialists. In naval shipbuilding hubs from Wisconsin to Virginia, recruiters are offering training pipelines and sign‑on bonuses to counter attrition and a wave of retirements.

The Tech Talent Arms Race

If the frontline is on factory floors, the back office is increasingly in the cloud. Defense’s software shift—spanning mission planning, autonomy, sensor fusion and predictive maintenance—has created a parallel market for data talent. NATO’s adoption of AI‑enabled decision support, and a flurry of contracts for autonomy in the U.S., U.K. and Australia, have accelerated demand for machine‑learning engineers, applied scientists and MLOps specialists who can ship code under tight security constraints.

Europe’s defense‑tech startups—once niche—now compete head‑to‑head with Silicon Valley for graduates who might previously have chosen fintech or adtech. They pitch a mix of mission, speed and impact: small teams building deployable autonomy for drones, software that cuts targeting cycles from hours to minutes, and VR‑driven training tools that turn torrents of telemetry into feedback for crews. The competition is particularly fierce in London, Munich and Paris, where venture‑backed firms sit alongside aerospace incumbents like BAE, Leonardo and Airbus.

Welders Wanted, Clearances Required

Despite the momentum, labor markets are tight. Skilled trades pipelines in the U.S. and Europe have thinned after decades of employers prioritizing just‑in‑time staffing and young workers drifting away from heavy industry. Companies are rebuilding the basics: apprenticeships, in‑house academies, and mid‑career conversion schemes for veterans and for workers crossing over from automotive and energy. In the U.S. South and Midwest, community colleges have become talent feeders for shipyards and munitions plants, while European manufacturers are partnering with technical schools to add welding bays and metrology labs.

Then there’s the security piece. Many software roles require background checks and export‑control literacy, which slow hiring and filter the candidate pool. For graduates who grew up on open‑source tools and distributed teams, the defense world’s air‑gapped networks and need‑to‑know culture can be jarring. Recruiters say they now budget extra time to explain the constraints—and the upside—of building in classified environments.

What The Work Looks Like

For welders, work has shifted from one‑off rework to repeatable, certifiable processes. Documentation is as central as dexterity: traceability, heat‑treat records, porosity logs. Augmented‑reality overlays guide fits in tight hull spaces; automated weld cells handle long runs while humans tackle complex joints and final acceptance. Employers emphasize stability—multi‑year programs with predictable overtime—and offer paid training to move from plate to pipe to exotic alloys.

For engineers, the core challenge is integration. Military programs touch dozens of suppliers, legacy standards and safety‑critical constraints. Model‑based systems engineering is now table stakes; digital twins extend from manufacturing lines to deployed fleets. The most sought‑after résumés combine mechanical or electrical fundamentals with software literacy—Python for test automation, C++ for embedded control, and the ability to read a wiring diagram and a Git diff with equal fluency.

For data scientists and AI engineers, the problems are less Kaggle competition and more messy reality: sparse, noisy sensors; edge compute with strict power budgets; adversaries trying to spoof your models; and the ethics of building tools that may be used in combat. The job is part research, part engineering, part safety case. Increasingly, teams are hiring red‑teamers to stress systems, and evaluators to document model limits before code ships to soldiers and sailors.

Pay, Purpose And Pushback

Compensation remains competitive. Skilled trades salaries have climbed as overtime becomes a fixture and as unions negotiate for retention bonuses. Engineers with clearances command premiums. Data talent that might once have gone to big tech increasingly weighs mission and impact against stock options. Surveys suggest that for a slice of candidates, working on deterrence—and on systems meant to save lives through precision and better decision‑making—outweighs discomfort about the sector. For others, the ethics are a deal‑breaker; student protests have prompted some companies to pull back from campus job fairs even as they expand their grad intakes.

Governments are trying to smooth the path. The U.K.’s latest defense‑industrial strategy puts skills at the center, with new technical colleges, funding to modernize training, and a push to convert military experience into civilian qualifications. Across the EU, procurement reforms and funding vehicles are designed to expand ammunition output and shorten timelines. In the U.S., Defense Production Act authorities and multi‑year buys aim to give suppliers the confidence to hire and train.

A Hiring Map In Four Buckets

1) **Skilled trades**: welders, fitters, machinists, NDT techs, electricians. Demand is strongest in shipbuilding belts (U.S. Gulf and Great Lakes) and in northern and central Europe (Germany, Poland, the Baltics). Certifications (ASME, AWS, EN ISO) and willingness to relocate unlock the widest options.

2) **Core engineering**: systems, mechanical, electrical, test and integration engineers. Experience with aerospace standards, safety cases and model‑based systems engineering is at a premium. Candidates who can bridge design and production—closing the loop between CAD, the line and the field—rise fastest.

3) **Digital and AI**: data scientists, ML engineers, autonomy and perception specialists, cyber defenders. Experience with edge deployment, sensor fusion, MLOps under classification constraints, and evaluation/safety is increasingly non‑negotiable.

4) **Program enablers**: supply‑chain managers, export‑control specialists, quality engineers, and reliability, maintainability and availability (RMA) experts. As production scales, these roles are the grease in the gears.

What Candidates Should Know

Clearances take time; export rules are strict; and the paperwork is real. But hiring managers say the bar isn’t perfection. They are looking for persistence, safety mindset and an appetite to learn. Mid‑career pivots are common—oil‑and‑gas welders moving into shipyards; automotive engineers learning mil‑standards; cloud data scientists retraining on on‑prem clusters and edge devices. Many firms now pay for certifications and run bootcamps to bridge gaps.

As budgets swell, the risk is overheating—too many contracts chasing too few people, with schedules slipping and costs climbing. Executives warn that the only reliable hedge is a bigger, better‑trained workforce. For all the focus on hypersonics and AI, the deciding variable may be who can train and retain the people to build and operate them. The defense boom, in other words, is a hiring boom—and the queue at the gate runs from the welding school to the machine‑learning lab.