Despite the announcement of an 8% fall in the Ministry of Defence (MoD) budget, recruiters struck an optimistic note at a job fair for security-cleared candidates held in London last week.

More than 30 recruiters attended Security Cleared Expo 2010 held in Victoria, London with 2,500 candidates registering their interest.

It is estimated that 17,000 jobs will go across Britain’s armed services by 2015, with 25,000 civilian jobs due to go at the MoD.

Speaking to Recruiter at the event, Lynda Grayson, recruitment manager for sonar, communications and integrated systems at Ultra Electronics, who works for HR services provider NorthgateArinso, said: “I don’t think it is going to affect us because ours is such a niche market, and there is still the need for the products we develop.”

Another exhibitor at the job fair, who wished to remain anonymous, said that many armed forces personnel who lose their job would find work in the wider defence industry. She said this would often happen naturally, with military personnel migrating over to work for onsite contractors. “A good proportion of our staff are ex-forces,” she added.

Daniel Kirkpatrick, business unit manger at Jam, added that the key to ex-forces personnel finding work in the wider defence industry was to adapt their skills and tailor them to the market.

Tony Samuel, sales director of organisers of the event www.securityclearedjobs.com, said that central government civil servants who were about to lose their jobs in the forthcoming cuts also had good job prospects, as 80% already had some level of security clearance.
Bill Meir, director of intelligent resourcing at BMT Hi-Q Sigma, who recruits interims and consultants in the defence industry, said the cuts would increase demand for personnel for short-term contracts of up to a year.

He added there would be particular demand for people with programme, project management and engineering skills. “What they will find as they always do is they say ’Yes, stop all use of consultants’ to save money, but very soon they are saying ’We can’t complete this task because we haven’t got the people’. The same people will end up doing the same jobs, but as contractors. We see it as an opportunity rather than the other way round.”