This year’s WEAF Annual Conference & Expo brought the South West’s aerospace and advanced engineering leaders together under the theme: “Doing More With Less.”
This year’s WEAF Annual Conference & Expo brought the South West’s aerospace and advanced engineering leaders together under the theme: “Doing More With Less.” Held at the Winter Gardens Pavilion, the event tackled the big questions facing the sector - from sustainability and talent to supply chain resilience and innovation.
Representatives from major primes like BAE Systems, Rolls-Royce, GKN, and Vertical Aerospace took to the stage to share their insights, and we were proud to be alongside them, with our very own Mark Probert joining the AI in Aerospace panel to explore how agile, rapid proof-of-concept projects can unlock real-world value from emerging technologies.
The day’s packed agenda offered a wide-ranging look at the sector’s future, with a few consistent threads weaving through each talk and panel:
The industry continues to recover post-pandemic, with 0.5% growth in aerospace and 2.5% in manufacturing, according to ADS Group’s Aimie Stone. Demand for air travel is climbing fast, supported by:
MBDA’s Mark Harrison underscored the need for rigorous penetration testing across the supply chain, highlighting increasing compliance demands. He also noted how off-the-shelf LLMs are being explored for internal knowledge capture, particularly during staff turnover.
From our perspective, relying on generic tools is a short-term fix. If you want control, scalability, and strategic value, building your own AI tools makes far more sense, which is something we regularly help clients with through our agile architecture offering.
With sectors such as pharma and energy drawing from the same limited STEM talent pool, Tom Burgess of Rolls-Royce spoke on the growing battle. His message? The industry needs to take a joined-up approach - looking at greater collaboration with colleges and training providers like Weston College is key to building a sustainable pipeline of skilled workers.
GKN’s team highlighted a key bottleneck in the form of duplicate certification processes across UK treatment houses. Many SMEs are absorbing the cost of inefficiency, but the question remains: Why aren’t OEMs and primes stepping up with digital solutions? The opportunity is clear - shared certification platforms or streamlined tech-driven processes could transform this challenge into a competitive advantage.
Gary Moore from BAE Systems challenged the “cheapest wins” mindset, calling instead for boldness in procurement and commercial innovation. His point made perfect sense: innovation, especially agile, iterative innovation, needs to be valued and funded accordingly. “Buy cheap, buy twice” - a point that resonated with many listening.
Vertical Aerospace’s Olivia Steel shared their mission to achieve certification by 2027 - a target that will require extreme agility in development and testing. The Disruptive Tech Panel emphasised that SMEs combining speed, collaboration, and mission-led technology are uniquely positioned to drive the sector toward a carbon-neutral future.
At New Icon, we left the event energised by the sector’s appetite for change and innovation, even in the face of tight margins and rising complexity. Themes like secure AI adoption, rapid prototyping, streamlined digital processes, and agile collaboration map directly onto the work we’re doing with aerospace and engineering organisations across the UK. We believe the future of aerospace won’t just be defined by what’s built but how it’s built. And that means doing more with less but doing it smarter, faster, and with purpose.
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