A UK Implementation Architecture

The proposed architecture adopts the five Ukrainian principles through British institutional forms. It does not replicate Ukrainian agencies; it composes British equivalents from existing institutional capacity, with specific additions where capacity does not yet exist. The design goal is an architecture that could begin to operate in the current financial year and reach meaningful scale within thirty-six months.

5.1 The foundation layer

The foundation layer is digital public infrastructure adapted for defence use. The United Kingdom already has most of the necessary components: GOV.UK as the citizen-facing layer, One Login as the identity layer, the Data Standards Authority as the standards body, and the various registries and databases operated by government departments. What is missing is the defence-specific extension — a Trembita-equivalent interoperability framework connecting defence data holdings (personnel, equipment, training, readiness, intelligence, logistics, operations) under cryptographic authentication, accessible to Ministry of Defence, Armed Forces, and approved industry partners.

The institutional home for this work is shared: the Government Digital Service provides the digital public infrastructure expertise; the Defence Digital organisation within the Ministry of Defence provides defence-specific domain knowledge. A joint programme, funded through the Defence Investment Plan and the Cabinet Office digital and data budget, with a three-year delivery horizon for version 1.0 and a ten-year infrastructure lifespan, would produce the foundation layer. The cost envelope is in the order of £200–400 million over the delivery period, which is modest relative to the overall defence budget and which should be assessed as infrastructure rather than as a programme in the traditional sense.

5.2 The innovation cluster

The innovation cluster function is partially performed by existing institutions and requires consolidation rather than new creation. UK Defence Innovation, established in 2025 with a £400 million envelope, performs part of the Brave1 grant-making function. The Defence Science and Technology Laboratory performs part of the certification and testing function. Dstl's Defence Technology Exploitation Programme performs part of the scale-up function. The National Security Strategic Investment Fund and British Business Bank perform part of the growth capital function. These institutions do not currently compose as a coherent cluster.

Staffing should target roughly 300 people over three years, recruited predominantly from the technology sector rather than the civil service, on pay scales benchmarked to market and funded through a dedicated budget line. The leadership should be appointed through open competition with sector credibility as the primary criterion; political appointment is acceptable at the chair level but inappropriate at chief executive level.

5.3 The battle management layer

The battle management layer is the area where the United Kingdom has the clearest capability gap. The current position is a patchwork of legacy systems, Project ASGARD as a prototype of what is possible, and programmes such as Morpheus (the Army's tactical communications programme) that have been troubled by delivery issues. No UK system is currently equivalent in capability to DELTA, and no UK programme is on a trajectory to produce such a system within the decade.

The architectural choice is between three options:

1. Build indigenously through a major prime-contractor programme — slow, expensive, likely to arrive obsolete.
2. Purchase DELTA from Ukraine under intergovernmental agreement — fast and cheaper, but creates a dependency on a foreign supplier for critical national command-and-control.
3. Adopt a hybrid approach — license the DELTA architecture and modules under intergovernmental agreement while building UK-owned modules for UK-specific requirements on the same platform. This is the proposed route, because it captures most of the speed-to-capability advantage while retaining sovereign control over the most sensitive elements.

The institutional home for this work is the Ministry of Defence Chief of Defence Intelligence and the Defence Digital organisation, working jointly. Timeline expectations: eighteen months to operational pilot with UK forces, thirty-six months to wider roll-out, and continuous incremental enhancement thereafter. The budget envelope is in the order of £500 million to £1 billion over the first five years; the £1 billion digital targeting web commitment provides initial funding, though the architecture proposed here differs materially from what has been briefed publicly to date.

5.4 The procurement and fulfilment layer

The procurement and fulfilment layer is a marketplace architecture for relevant equipment categories, operated jointly by the Defence Technology Cluster (certification and catalogue) and Defence Equipment and Support (contracting and logistics). The Procurement Act 2023 permits dynamic purchasing systems and competitive flexible procedures that are adequate legal foundations for a marketplace model; the detailed operating model does not yet exist but can be developed within the existing legal framework.

The categories to which marketplace procurement should apply are, initially:

• Small and medium unmanned aerial systems (sub-25 kg)
• Counter-UAS systems at unit level
• Man-portable electronic warfare
• Small-unit communications accessories
• Individual-soldier equipment ancillaries
• Rapid-iteration AI-first software modules

These categories are characterised by fast technology evolution, high unit volumes, variable operational requirements, and the presence of a credible venture-backed supplier base. Categories characterised by strategic platform status (submarines, aircraft, armour, ships, complex weapons) should remain within the traditional prime-contractor procurement architecture.

The end-user selection mechanism should be piloted initially at brigade level within the British Army, with extension to Royal Navy and Royal Air Force equivalents following successful pilot. The feedback-loop integration — linking procurement allocation to operational effectiveness measurement — requires further design work than the other elements and should be piloted in exercise environments before operational use.

5.5 Summary institutional architecture