With the recent announcement of a woman being appointed as Chief of Army for the first time in Australia’s history, seeing women in the room has become more important now than ever.
But progress for women in defence and defence industry does not just stop at the national level, real progress transcends borders and shapes the international community.
ADM Women in Defence and National Security Online Event – Australia and the United Kingdom occurred on 14 April 2026 at 6pm. The event was held online to ensure both UK and Australian members of Defence and defence industry could join the conversation.
The theme was Institutional Change Under Pressure: Progress, Procurement and Power. It started with a video from the Minister for Defence Industry, Pat Conroy, providing an address.
“In this rapidly changing world, the need to come together to affirm our shared values and to strengthen all that unites us, is more important than it has ever been,” Minister Conroy said.
“And Australia and the UK are more than friends. We’re family. Our bonds are deep. Bonds of blood. Bonds of history. Bonds of culture and language.”
On women in the defence sphere, Minister Conroy reinforced their importance in shaping the industry.
“In every part of Defence and security, from uniformed personnel to frontline to manufacturers, policymakers and politicians, women are playing a crucial role. Because Defence is a whole of nation effort,” Minister Conroy stated.
“Today, around 50 per cent of the Defence APS workforce and around 21 per cent of the ADF workforce are women. Defence continues to work towards its target of 25 per cent representation of women in the permanent ADF by 2030.”
“Quite simply, we cannot defend ourselves and our values without the innovation, skills and service of women. As the world grows more complex and dangerous, we simply cannot succeed in our mission without your strength, intelligence and insight.”
The event had 123 dial-ins with even more attending the online event, as dial-ins included rooms full of people.
The speakers were from both the UK and Australia and included BAE Systems Australia, Director - Integrated Defence & Autonomy Systems, Kisa Christensen; Babcock International, Chief Delivery Officer, Donna Sinnick; KDC Projects, CEO, Pete Burden; and Mack Valves, Executive Director, and member of Women’s Defence Connection, Karin Vosmansky as speakers. Women in Defence UK, Founder, Angela Owen, was emcee.
Topics discussed included but were not excluded to women working in Defence, programs for women, learning from older mentors, and why women are leaving or not venturing into the industry.
When asked about why there is an exodus of women from the defence industry, the panel provided some illuminating answers.
“In terms of the industry, again it’s what I would say Children and not having the flexibility,” Vosmansky answered.
To attract women to the industry, the panel possessed multiple ideas. Christensen discussed the level of secrecy in the industry, calling it “opaque”.
“There’s not a lot of transparency. So, I think that’s a good first step – being transparent,” Christensen highlighted.
To combat the ever-looming quotas, Christensen indicated BAE Systems’ plan.
“One of the things that we’re doing is looking outside of the traditional sort of STEM fields as well as outside of the sort of HR/Finance fields where you’ll see more representation of women. One of the areas of opportunity we found was in the project management pipeline,” Christensen said.
Sinnick provided an overview of the policies Babcock International has to ensure a better working environment for women and employees overall. These policies include a gender-neutral parenting policy leave, neonatal and premature baby leave, and flexible working models.
“We have just released information around our neonatal and premature baby leave which we are the first defence company [to do so] and hopefully others will follow in this, supporting paid premature baby leave,” Sinnick said.
“We have flexible, agile working models that are designed to maintain through all different lifecycle stages of females across our organisation.”
Burden provided a unique perspective from a British SME about recruiting women.
“It’s not easy and particularly not easy for SMEs. Recruiting into SMEs against OEMs is difficult enough and then trying to recruit women into engineering,” Burden said.
“At KDC we think you’ve got to start quite young. I’ve worked on several steering boards for skills. I sit on the Industrial Advisory Board for our local university as well. When you look at the numbers, there is just a steady decline as kids go through education where women are engaging with engineering or engineering studies.”