UK government releases the National Security Strategy 2025
Written By
Partner
UK
As a Partner in the Tech Transactions team, I primarily advise clients on technology contracts across the Technology and Defence sectors. I focus on emerging and cutting edge technology (Artificial Intelligence in particular), more 'traditional' defence contracting, and the intersection of the two - helping clients navigate the rapidly evolving Defence Tech sector.
On 24 June 2025, the Government released their National Security Strategy 2025 (NSS 2025). Titled Security for the British People in a Dangerous World, the paper is positioned as a comprehensive response to a new era of “radical uncertainty” and represents a “hardening and a sharpening” of the UK’s approach to national security across all areas of policy. It seeks to break new ground from previous national security reviews and is structured in response to three primary strategic challenges: being Confrontation, Competition and Cooperation.
The NSS 2025 seeks to bring together the various strands of work relating to national security that have been underway since 2024. One strand in particular is the Strategic Defence Review (SDR) that was published on 2 June 2025 (commentary on which can be found here). The three challenges listed above provide the Strategic Context to the NSS 2025. Confrontation describes the direct confrontation the UK faces with adversaries. The SDR identifies Russia as posing the most acute threat here; accompanied by a campaign of indirect and sub-threshold activity such as cyber attacks and sabotage. Competition forms the second challenge and seeks to describe the system and strategic competition with nations that do not share UK values, have divergent interests, or have the capability to undermine the UK’s security and prosperity. Finally, Cooperation describes the power of allegiance and the likelihood of an increase in transactionalism and increasing reliance on pragmatic bilateral deals and minilateral groupings.
The UK’s response to the three challenges that form the Strategic Context will be guided by the Strategic Framework. The Strategic Framework consists of three pillars: Security at Home, Strength Abroad, and Increase Sovereign and Asymmetric Capabilities. Each pillar is further broken down into its own three sections. Focussing on one of these sections contained within the first pillar (Security at Home), the NSS 2025 recognises the vital importance of long-term actions to build national resilience against external threats (the Resilience Strategy). The Resilience Strategy follows the UK’s commitment at the NATO Vilnius Summit to develop National Resilience Goals, NATO’s seven Baseline Requirements for resilience and Alliance-wide Resilience objectives. Generally speaking, the strategy aims at developing new measures to anticipate and prepare for risks that emerge from scientific or technological developments. It also recognises the need for the UK to reduce its reliance on others to ensure supply chains, energy security and access to critical goods can be maintained.
More specifically, the Resilience Strategy encompasses a series of new measures aimed at enhancing the resilience of the UK’s critical national infrastructure, including undersea cables, energy pipelines, transportation and logistics hubs all of which are increasingly becoming a target. The new measures range from enhance defence of the UK’s island territory to stronger upstream measures and cyber capabilities. This ties in with the Government’s recognition within NSS 2025 of the threats to cyber security and the increasing exposure of infrastructure and digital services to increasingly intense, frequent and sophisticated hostile cyber activity.
On the same day as the NSS 2025, the UK Government also announced that it will purchase 12 new F-35A fighter jets as part of the F35 programme and also join NATO’s dual capable aircraft nuclear mission. The announcement forms part of the UK’s 2025 NATO Summit pledge whereby the nation will commit to spending 5% of GDP on national security. This generational increase is the largest sustained investment in armed forces that the UK has seen since the Cold War, and the F35 programme acts as a first step in that direction.
The NSS 2025 signals a marked evolution in the UK’s approach to national security, embedding resilience, technological readiness and strategic deterrence at the core of policy. For those operating in or engaging with the defence and security sectors, the Strategy presents both a signal of sustained investment and a shift in regulatory and strategic priorities. Close attention should now turn to how this framework translates into procurement decisions, legislative developments, and international collaborations in the months ahead.
