The UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) plans on launching a new Test and Evaluation (T&E) Marketplace by the end of 2026, DSEI Gateway learned during an MoD led small and medium sized enterprise workshop.
The purpose of the marketplace is to act as a single portal or online “one stop shop”, allowing users to find, assess, and access T&E facilities and support services, Caroline Kelly, MoD Asst Head of Future Technology for the T&E Transformation Programme said at DSEI UK 2025 on 9 September.
It will also give industry a place to promote their capabilities and skills, she added, while helping the MoD to find and make better use of the various testing ranges available across the UK.
This will help address the current issue faced by both defence and industry in identifying and leveraging the wide range of T&E facilities and services available across the UK – many of which are provided by small firms, she acknowledged.
Ahead of its full launch at the end of 2026, the MoD will roll out a pilot version earlier in the year with select industry partners to test and refine the portal.
The marketplace forms part of a much broader effort known as the T&E Transformation Programme, started in 2022, which is designed to modernise how the UK tests and assures complex military systems.
Focusing on using digital and mobile tools to combine real-world and virtual testing, the aim is to try and speed up the delivery of new capabilities to the frontline.
To date, the MoD has completed the discovery, planning, and piloting stages as part of phase one, which included Project Zeus – a trial held in 2023 that experimented with a new approach to assuring autonomous systems. Learnings from which have been incorporated into the programme’s phase two work.
Other projects will be taken forward into phase two as well, along with the development of a new T&E data and digital strategy.
