Sit in on almost any public sector digital strategy meeting – whether that’s aerospace and defence or social care - and the ambition is more citizen platforms, secure defence systems, and better use of data. Not only that, but departments also want it faster, smarter and built to last. What's much harder to find is a plan for who actually delivers that ambition, and who's still around to keep it running once the contract ends.
That gap between ambition and delivery capacity is playing out across government right now, most obviously visible in technology, digital and cyber roles and in sectors where these shortfalls are critical such as defence.
The revolving door problem
For years, the default has been to bring in a delivery team for a fixed piece of work, then let that team leave once the contract closes. That's fine until the programme needs picking up again months or years later. A new supplier arrives, and the first job on the list is rebuilding the context, decisions and technical detail that walked out the door with the last team.
That's expensive and slow, and in security sensitive programmes it's worse, with every handover a fresh point of exposure, not just a delay.
The numbers aren't moving in the right direction
There are roughly 11,000 unfilled cyber security roles in the UK, and that's before further spread of AI adoption pushes demand even higher. Public sector organisations are competing for the same shrinking pool of digital and technical talent as everyone else.
Some vital areas within the public sector such as defence have mission-critical skills shortages that are set to negatively impact the actual security of the country.
The government has mostly tried to fix this through spend controls rather than supply. In 2024, the Cabinet Office set a target to halve consultancy spend and save £1.2 billion by 2026, backed by tighter sign-off and a new commercial framework. Eighteen months on, the National Audit Office found the Treasury still doesn't have reliable data on what departments actually spend on external resource, let alone a clear route to bringing it down.
Controlling the invoice hasn't solved the capability problem underneath it, because the two were never the same thing.
What will build capability that stays
The answer isn't fewer contractors; it's a different relationship with contingent and specialist talent where continuity is planned for rather than left to chance. This is where workforce solutions do the real work in range of ways:
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Looking for transferable capability in adjacent sectors rather than only competing for people who already have public sector experience. For example, our recent research found that 80% of professionals with the right underlying technical skills had never worked in the defence sector although 49% would consider it, which shows how much capability gets missed when hiring stays inside familiar talent pools.
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Talent pools built for a programme, not a single contract, so the same specialists move between phases instead of leaving with the statement of work. Scale matters here: Guidant Global's talent network runs to over 200,000 specialists, which is what makes it possible to convert adjacent capability into a public sector programme rather than starting a search from zero.
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Recruit, Train, Deploy programmes, which build skills into people who don't have them yet, rather than only competing for the same small group of qualified specialists as everyone else.
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Workforce visibility and data through analytics platform, so departments can see exactly what skills and people are in a programme at any point, and spot knowledge walking out the door before it happens rather than after.
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Governance built for public sector procurement, so continuity doesn't come at the cost of scrutiny or compliance.
A better measure of success
Public sector delivery has spent years judging success by spend controlled and contracts signed. Given the scale of the skills shortage - and the risk that 2026's savings targets look good on paper while capability quietly drains away underneath - it's also worth measuring how much expertise is still in the building twelve months after a project ends.
Turning digital ambition into lasting delivery capability isn't specifically a procurement question, it's a workforce one. In defence programmes especially, where clearance timelines and skills continuity carry real operational weight, this means planning for how people are retained and grown over the life of a programme, not just the length of a contract.
Guidant Global works with public sector organisations to build workforce strategies that keep pace with that ambition, from MSP programmes to specialist talent pools and skills pipelines. If that's a conversation worth having for your programmes, get in touch.
If you’re working in defence and looking for an alternative approach to sourcing talent, download our report, Capability Conversion: Meeting Defence's Next Mission, to find out where the transferable talent sits, what's blocking it, and how to convert it into deployable capability.
