"The Data Doesn't Lie, But It Doesn't Tell the Whole Story Either": A Conversation with Dr. Priya Subramaniam on Market Research in Aerospace and Defence

Introduction

Dr. Priya Subramaniam is a Principal Research Director at a London-based defence strategy consultancy and a visiting fellow at Cranfield University's Defence and Security Institute. With over 18 years of experience conducting market intelligence for prime contractors, government procurement agencies, and investment funds operating in the aerospace and defence (A&D) sector, she has developed a reputation for bridging rigorous quantitative modeling with the nuanced, politically sensitive intelligence landscape that defines this industry. We sat down with Dr. Subramaniam to discuss the state of market research practice in A&D, the unique methodological challenges the sector poses, and how the next generation of researchers can build credibility in this demanding field.

"The aerospace and defence market is one of the few sectors where your client's customer is often a government, your data is partially classified, and the concept of 'consumer preference' is replaced by a procurement specification written by a committee of engineers and policy officials. That fundamentally changes what good research looks like."
— Dr. Priya Subramaniam

Setting the Scene: The Current State of the A&D Market

Let's start with the big picture. Where does the aerospace and defence market stand right now, and what are the primary forces shaping research demand?

The market is, to put it plainly, in an era of extraordinary expansion driven by geopolitical volatility. Global defence spending crossed $2.24 trillion in 2023 — that's the highest figure ever recorded in constant dollar terms, according to SIPRI's annual military expenditure report. NATO members that had been coasting below the 2% GDP spending threshold for years are now scrambling to build back capability, and that's creating intense demand for intelligence on supplier capacity, technology readiness, and programme pipeline timing.

On the aerospace side, commercial aviation is in a fascinating recovery and transformation phase simultaneously. Airbus and Boeing's combined order backlogs exceed 13,000 aircraft — a decade-plus of production at current rates — and yet both OEMs are simultaneously navigating supply chain fragility that became brutally apparent during the post-pandemic ramp-up period. Spirit AeroSystems' difficulties with Boeing's 737 MAX fuselage quality were not just an operational story; they were a signal of deep structural stress in the Tier 1 and Tier 2 supply chain that every researcher in this sector should be watching closely.

So the research demand is coming from multiple directions: primes and government clients want supply chain risk intelligence, investors want accurate programme value assessments, and new entrants — particularly in space and unmanned systems — want to understand where the addressable market actually is and how procurement is likely to evolve.

On the Unique Methodological Challenges of A&D Research

You've described A&D as one of the most methodologically challenging sectors for market researchers. Can you elaborate on that?

There are at least four major constraints that don't exist, or don't exist to the same degree, in most other industries.

First, data opacity. A significant portion of defence programme data is classified or subject to export controls — ITAR in the United States, the UK's Export Control Order, EU dual-use regulations. This means that large swaths of the market simply cannot be researched through normal secondary methods. You can't file a Freedom of Information request for the operational performance parameters of a next-generation electronic warfare system. Researchers have to become very skilled at triangulation — constructing estimates from contract award announcements, procurement budget lines, academic technical papers, and judicious primary interviews with appropriately cleared or publicly positioned sources.

Second, small and concentrated buyer populations. The primary customers for most defence products are ministries of defence, national procurement agencies like DARPA, DASA, or the European Defence Agency, and a relatively small number of allied governments. You cannot run a 1,500-respondent online survey with defence procurement officials. You're working with populations of dozens, sometimes fewer, which demands qualitative depth interview methodologies and expert elicitation techniques borrowed from intelligence analysis — structured analytic techniques like Analysis of Competing Hypotheses, red team reviews, and scenario planning workshops.

Third, extremely long programme cycles. The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter programme has been in development and production for over two decades. Typhoon upgrades will continue well into the 2030s. When you're advising a supplier about whether to invest in a specific capability, you're not talking about a two-year product roadmap — you're talking about a 15-to-20 year bet on technology direction and geopolitical alignment. Research methodologies need to accommodate that temporal horizon, which means Delphi studies, long-range scenario development, and technology foresight frameworks become essential tools.

Fourth, political and relationship sensitivity. Defence procurement is never purely commercial. Offsets, workshare agreements, political relationships, and sovereign capability considerations all influence contract decisions in ways that don't show up in any publicly available dataset. Experienced researchers in this sector develop extensive networks precisely because a well-placed conversation can illuminate a competitive situation that six months of desk research cannot.

"I tell junior researchers: in defence, your network is not a supplement to your methodology. It IS your methodology. Build it deliberately and guard it carefully."

On Specific Tools and Frameworks

What specific tools or platforms do you rely on most heavily in your practice?

For secondary research, Jane's by S&P Global is still the gold standard for equipment specifications, order-of-battle data, and programme tracking — though it's expensive and not always current on the most sensitive programmes. Shephard Media and Defense News provide reliable programme news flow. For commercial aerospace, Cirium (formerly Flightglobal) is indispensable for fleet, order, and financial data, and I also use the Airline Monitor and AVAC databases for deeper capacity analysis.

For budget and contract tracking in the U.S. market, USASpending.gov and SAM.gov are publicly available and criminally underused by researchers who haven't worked in this sector before. The UK MOD publishes annual equipment spending data through its Defence Equipment Plan, which is a rich resource. For EU defence, the European Defence Agency's Defence Data portal provides aggregated member state spending that helps contextualize national procurement decisions.

On the analytical side, I'm a strong advocate for scenario planning frameworks developed by groups like the RAND Corporation and the International Institute for Strategic Studies. Their published work provides both methodological templates and substantive benchmarks against which custom analysis can be validated. For technology foresight work, the NATO Science and Technology Organization publishes remarkable horizon-scanning documents that serious researchers in this sector should read cover to cover.

On Emerging Trends and the Future of A&D Research

What trends are reshaping research practice in aerospace and defence right now?

Three things are genuinely transforming the field. The first is the commercialization of space. Companies like SpaceX, Planet Labs, and a rapidly expanding constellation of smaller new space firms have created an entirely new sub-sector that blends commercial research methodologies with defence programme intelligence. The research question is no longer just 'what is the government budget for space?' — it's 'how are commercial space capabilities being integrated into defence architectures, and which suppliers are positioned to benefit?' That's a more complex and more interesting research problem.

The second is AI-enabled open-source intelligence. The amount of actionable information available through satellite imagery analysis, signals monitoring, and AI-assisted text mining of technical and procurement documentation has expanded dramatically. Firms are now using commercial satellite imagery providers like Maxar and Planet to monitor production facility activity, shipyard utilization, and test range operations at a cadence that was previously only available to national intelligence agencies. This is both an opportunity and a challenge — more signal, but also significantly more noise to filter.

The third is the dual-use convergence between defence and advanced civilian technology sectors. Quantum computing, autonomous systems, directed energy — these are areas where the commercial and defence technology development trajectories have become deeply intertwined. Researchers who understand only the traditional defence prime ecosystem will increasingly miss the competitive threats and opportunities coming from technology companies that don't have traditional defence DNA. The acquisition of AI firms by defence primes — Palantir's long-term contracts, Shield AI's valuation trajectory — these are the storylines that define the next decade of this market.

Advice for Early-Career Researchers Entering A&D

Finally, what would you say to someone early in their research career who wants to specialize in aerospace and defence?

Develop genuine technical literacy. You don't need an engineering degree, but you need to be able to read a technical specification, understand the difference between a programme's development and production phases, and know why EW capability matters differently than platform capability. Clients in this sector lose trust in researchers who can't demonstrate that foundation.

Get comfortable with ambiguity and uncertainty quantification. In A&D, you will frequently be asked to make assessments under conditions of profound information asymmetry. Learn structured analytic techniques — the work of Richards Heuer on intelligence analysis methodology is still the best starting point. And always, always communicate your confidence levels explicitly. An overconfident forecast in this sector can cost a client hundreds of millions of dollars in misallocated investment.

Finally, engage with the professional community. Organizations like the Royal Aeronautical Society, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), and the Market Research Society's Defence and Government Special Interest Group offer networking, professional development, and access to senior practitioners that no amount of online research can replicate. This is a sector built on relationships and trust — invest in both from day one.