Official Statistics

UK defence export statistics 2023: quality and methodology report

Published 17 December 2024

1. Introduction 

This report outlines the methodology, revision policy and data quality information relevant to the defence export statistics. This annual statistic is designated as an official statistic under the Statistics and Registration Act 2007.

Its aim is to support users to understand the strengths and limitations of these statistics and reduce the risk of misusing data. Therefore, this statistical report includes the details about the Department for Business and Trade’s (DBT’s) compliance with the quality principles as stated in the code of practice for statistics.  

For terms and definitions, please see the glossary at the end of this report. 

2.  Methodology  

2.1 Overview  

The UK defence export statistics is an annual publication that present figures on UK defence exports in the 10 years up to and including the previous calendar year. 

Defence export figures are collected by UK Defence and Security Exports (UKDSE), a part of DBT that monitors global defence and security exports. A survey is sent to UK businesses to capture the contracts they won in the previous calendar year.   

There is no internationally agreed definition of defence exports or how they should best be measured. Therefore, figures for UK exports are based on an annual survey of defence export orders won by known UK companies operating in the defence sector. Please refer to Annex B for an example of the survey. 

Defence figures relate to the full value of an order at the time a contract was signed, even if actual deliveries do not take place for months or years following the signing or are spread over several years. This enables the statistics to offer a current assessment of the health of the market. 

2.2 Identifying a defence export  

As mentioned in the overview, the survey captures orders for defence services, support, and equipment. Exports are judged to be defence-related primarily based on the type of customer, for example overseas Ministries of Defence and associated armed services, rather than on the type of products sold. 

The following details the types of orders that are included in the statistics: 

• ‘new orders’ covers both legally binding contracts and routine or small orders (for example, spares)  
• orders where the customer is defence related. Exports from a UK non-defence supplier may also be included if the customer is a Ministry of Defence (MOD) or defence manufacturer
• additions to existing orders. These are identified as separate entries in the database and will be included in the year in which they fall, rather than the year of the original order (as they cannot be matched to the original order)
• government-to-government programmes: a figure is included annually for exports achieved under these programmes (Saudi British Defence Co-operation Programme). These are based on customer-approved claims submitted against budgetary provisions included within various underlying agreements for goods and services and fixed priced purchase orders. This information is provided by the MOD Saudi Armed Forces Projects Office 
• orders from companies with dual ownership, for example UK/French, noting that only the UK value of the export is included 
• since 2019, all exports derived from collaborative projects including between partner nations are included. For example, UK Eurofighter Typhoon exports to Germany, Italy and Spain 
• orders covering international collaborative ventures, where the sale is not to one of the partners. Only the UK value-added is counted 
• joint ventures. Only the UK value-added part of the venture is counted 
• orders received by a UK-based subsidiary of a foreign company 
• contracts covering the provision of defence services overseas (consultancy, training), that benefit the UK defence industrial base

2.3 Sampling and survey dissemination 

Data on UK defence exports is collected via a survey of UK companies through which known defence exporters are asked for detailed information about their orders and contracts over the previous calendar year. For the 2023 publication, the survey was sent in January 2024.    

For the 2023 statistics, UKDSE sent the survey to 948 companies, of which 162 responded. This is an overall response rate of 17%. 17 of the companies surveyed have been identified as Key Account Managed (KAM) companies and are believed to account for a high percentage of the UK defence export market. Of those 17 companies, 11 responded, giving a response rate of 65% for that group. 

The list of companies that receive the survey is revised regularly to ensure that the maximum number of defence exporters are included. As sample frames, we draw from companies in the Defence Growth Partnership and those in the UKDSE Export Faculty.

While the list of companies is reviewed regularly, there may be some companies that are missed from our sampling process, potentially leading to under coverage of the defence export market. However, it is believed that these are smaller businesses that may not export defence goods, so the potential impact of their exclusion on the overall export estimates is likely to be minimal.  

Additionally, as the survey is voluntary, some companies may choose not to participate, while others may choose to provide aggregated figures rather than detailed contract information. Where respondents have provided aggregated figures, these products are classed as “unknown”.  

2.4 Methodological changes for 2023  

Previous releases have used other sources of data to supplement the UK survey for the UK export figures. Due to issues of comparability, for this release, other data sources have been removed from the UK export estimates. We have amended the time series in this publication to reflect these changes.

When removing the supplementary data sources over 2013 to 2022, this reduced the overall defence export estimates by 4%, equating to around £4 billion. Due to the change in methodology, please do not use figures from previous publications. Please use the amended time series figures from this year’s report when referring to export figures from previous years. 

Additionally, for this year, we have removed the “rest of the world” defence exports section from the Official Statistics release due to issues of comparability, coverage and quality. A separate “Market Intelligence” research publication will be published after this release that will cover DBT’s indicative estimates of the health of the “rest of the world” export market.  

2.5 Defence orders and contracts versus revenue or earnings 

The data collected and used in these statistics relates to defence export orders and announced contracts. The value of those orders and contracts represents the total payment agreed for the goods and services provided and is attributed in full to the year in which the order was reported. This is different to the true earnings or revenue generated by those orders, which may be spread over several years.

That spread cannot be accurately determined from the available data. As a result, order values may appear to show considerable variation from year to year, for example an apparent decline in the years following a large contract. This does not necessarily reflect variation in demand for exports. 

2.6 Moving average 

A moving average is a way of presenting time series data in which each presented value is an average of a set number of recent underlying values, with the selection of underlying values moving forward with each unit of time. This method helps to reduce the visual impact of year-to-year variation and give a stronger impression of underlying trends. It has been used in the statistics because of the apparent variability in defence contract data.

The charts provided in the statistics use 5-year moving averages, which means that each value shown represents the average of the values seen in the 5 years up to and including that year, rather than the actual value of contracts in that specific year. 

3. Data quality 

This section provides a range of information that describes the quality of the outputs and their reliability. Quality is measured in terms of the quality dimensions of the European Statistical System.  

3.1 Relevance  

Data and information relating to UK defence exports is fundamental to UKDSE’s analysis and understanding of trends in the defence export market. The statistics help to identify the UK defence industry’s strengths and weaknesses and the performance of the defence export market, especially in comparison to previous years. A review and user engagement exercise were conducted over summer 2024 by DBT to get feedback on the statistics. 

3.2 Accuracy and reliability  

Data for this statistical release is captured via a survey administered by UKDSE to all known UK defence companies. As there is no single official record of UK defence contracts, we are reliant on this survey to form the estimates for our export statistics. Relying on survey data means that our statistics are likely to underestimate the “true” total value of defence export orders, as not all defence companies who received defence orders will have provided a response to the survey. We do not provide estimates on the uncaptured market.

Additionally, as mentioned in Section 2.3, it is likely that the statistics are affected by sampling bias, namely under coverage bias. However, any bias is believed to be small and is unlikely to produce misleading results or affect our estimates significantly.  

Once survey responses are received, data from all respondents are combined into a single spreadsheet which is then used as the basis for the charts, tables, and headline figures in the publication. Automated lookups and checks are carried out in the spreadsheet to ensure that the names of countries are consistent across different sources and that all countries are allocated to the correct regions.

The list of which countries are in each region for the purposes of these statistics are published alongside the other published documents. Manual checks are carried out on the dataset to identify any potential anomalous orders, when comparing the value of orders from the same company over a 5-year period. 

3.3 Timeliness and punctuality 

This is an annual publication, referencing the previous calendar year. The 2023 publication covers the calendar year from January 2023 to December 2023. The UKDSE survey is sent out to companies on an annual basis, and the figures refer to the previous calendar year. The survey that provided most of the information about UK defence exports was sent in January 2024. 

3.4 Accessibility and clarity 

In line with the government accessibility requirements, the Defence Export Statistics are provided in the HyperText Markup Language (HTML) which follows the AA accessibility standards for GOV.UK publications.  In this HTML web page, we provide a narrative and charts. Data for these charts are provided in separate CSV files on the hosting page for ease of access and use.  

DBT continues to review the accessibility of these statistics prior to each publication, ensuring it adheres to the government accessibility requirements. This release is also reviewed by the DBT Digital Team. For further information or additional requests, please refer to the contact details in this report. 

3.5 Coherence and comparability

The UKDSE survey does not align with other trade data sources, as it is taken on a basis of orders placed rather than movement of goods. Movement of goods and balance of payments are the bases of goods exports statistics produced by HMRC and the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

In addition to these differences in data collection methods, HMRC and ONS trade statistics do not provide a classification with regards to defence or civilian use of goods categories such as ships or planes.

Further to this, the data collected by the survey includes associated defence services which may be provided with or without associated goods, such as training. These services are not derived from HMRC data and are collected by the ONS using an alternative methodology. 

The UKDSE survey also differs from other defence publications such as the strategic export controls licensing data. The licencing data are collected on a different basis via the total value of export licences issued or refused by the Export Control Joint Unit (ECJU) and thus are not comparable to this release. 

4. Terms and definitions 

UK Defence and Security Exports (UKDSE) 

UKDSE is part of DBT. UKDSE helps UK defence, cyber and physical security, and civil maritime companies to export, and helps overseas companies invest in the UK in these sectors. 

Rest of world (RoW) exports 

RoW exports refer to exports by countries other than the UK. UK and RoW exports are treated separately in the statistics because of the issues described under the Comparability section. 

5.  Annex A: alternative defence export data sources 

The following data sources are not used by this publication and are not comparable with it. However, they may provide additional information and context for users. 

5.1 HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) 

HMRC publish data on exports and imports by commodity in Overseas Trade Statistics (OTS). However, these are commodity based, rather than customer based. They record transactions at the point in time when the commodities cross borders, not when initial orders are placed. It is not possible to specify which commodities are for defence use or which are for civil use. This data is therefore not useful in assessing defence industry specific exports and imports. 

In 2008, the UK government ceased producing defence export delivery data, as it was not possible to derive meaningful results. For example, the HMRC customs codes for aircraft do not differentiate between military and civil aircraft. 

5.2  Export Control Joint Unit (ECJU) 

The ECJU is part of the Department for Business and Trade and publishes official data on the number of licences granted for export in the strategic export controls annual and quarterly reports. Some of these are categorised as military or dual use. This data relates to numbers of licences and the value under each licence.

The actual value of exports made under the licences is likely to be less than reported because some of these licences will not be used. For this reason, this data is not useful for assessing the health of the UK defence exports sector. 

5.3 Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) 

SIPRI is a major provider of defence export delivery data. It only reports on global arms deliveries, and not new orders or contracts that we require for our business purposes. 

6. Annex B: survey form sent to UK defence companies

The UKDSE survey is the main source of information about UK defence exports for these statistics. A blank sample of the survey form is provided as an annex alongside the statistics publication.