The Ministry of Defence has announced Project Safari, a joint programme with QinetiQ intended to make UK test and evaluation facilities easier for smaller defence firms to use. According to the government statement, the programme is designed to shorten the route from early development to in-service capability by reducing the administrative and site-access barriers that have often slowed trials. The policy focus is practical rather than doctrinal. The MOD is targeting the stage between invention and fielding, where smaller suppliers frequently struggle to secure access to ranges, laboratories and approvals needed to demonstrate equipment in realistic conditions.
That matters because the department has identified testing and evaluation as a procurement bottleneck, especially for SMEs and firms that are new to defence. In the Ministry of Defence account, businesses have faced multiple layers of approval and fragmented entry points to sovereign facilities, making it harder to prove whether a new system is ready for operational use. Project Safari is meant to replace that fragmented approach with a single route into the relevant sites and services. If the model works as described, it would reduce the transaction costs of dealing with government, lower the time spent on permissions and give smaller firms earlier feedback on whether a product can meet defence requirements.
The announcement is also notable for the technologies it names. The MOD says the programme will support testing for hypersonic missiles, directed energy weapons and autonomous systems, all areas where development cycles are moving quickly and where evidence from live or near-live trials can determine whether a concept is credible. QinetiQ’s role is central because it already operates a large share of the UK’s specialist test and evaluation estate. By placing QinetiQ alongside government and regulators in the programme design, the department is signalling that reform will depend not only on procurement policy but also on how facilities are booked, how trial activity is approved and how technical assurance is handled.
Alongside the policy announcement, Luke Pollard, the minister for defence readiness and industry, signed an agreement with QinetiQ for the first design stage of a multi-million-pound investment at MOD Hebrides. The site is the UK’s largest weapons test range, and the government says the new design work will prepare it for testing hypersonic missiles and other advanced systems. That detail is important because it shows Project Safari is not limited to process reform. The government is also linking the programme to physical infrastructure and range modernisation, which suggests the department sees capacity and site suitability as part of the same delivery problem as approvals and market access.
The ministerial visit included a roundtable with SME representatives, including Greenjets and Cambridge Aerospace, on the barriers they face when seeking test and evaluation services. According to the MOD, the department used the session to gather direct evidence from smaller suppliers rather than relying only on prime contractors or internal defence teams. Pollard also met MGI Engineering, an Oxfordshire-based SME competing in Project Brakestop and developing low-cost long-range weapons for Ukraine. That reference places Safari within a wider operational context: the pressure to move from concept to deployment more quickly is being shaped not just by industrial policy, but by the demands of current conflicts and the pace at which adversaries adapt.
The government is presenting Safari as an implementation measure for the Strategic Defence Review. In that review, defence committed to increasing annual spend with SMEs by £2.5 billion by summer 2028, and the MOD is now linking access to test infrastructure directly to that target. The implication is clear: raising SME spend is not only a contracting issue; it also depends on whether smaller firms can get their equipment through the validation stages that precede procurement at scale. The announcement also sits alongside the Defence Investment Plan, which the government says is backed by £298 billion of funding over the next four years. For policy readers, the combined message is that defence wants procurement reform, industrial participation and readiness improvements to be treated as one programme of delivery rather than as separate initiatives.
What remains less clear is the delivery timetable beyond the initial design work, the extent of the single entry route across different facilities, and how far regulators and approval authorities will change their existing processes. The government communication sets out the direction of travel, but not yet the operating model, performance measures or a published timeline for when firms should expect materially faster access. Even so, the announcement is a significant marker. If Project Safari reduces waiting times, simplifies permissions and expands usable test capacity, it could improve the odds that smaller British suppliers move from prototype to service entry without being crowded out by cost, delay or process complexity. For defence policy, that would amount to a procurement reform with operational consequences rather than a purely administrative change.