How to Become a Supplier to Defence Companies in Europe

Selling to a defence company in Europe takes three things. The names of the people who approve new suppliers at primes (the companies that deliver the finished system) and tier 1 suppliers (who sell major parts straight to them). Proof of fit they can check in one read. And a channel that reaches them in their country.

Filling in a prime's supplier portal is the easy part. A commodity manager or a supplier quality engineer often decides whether anyone opens your file.

The timing is on your side. EU money from SAFE, EDIP and EDF is paying for more production and more joint buying across countries. To deliver it, primes need extra capacity and second sources. Below is who to contact, what to prove first, and what the new money changes for you.

What changed in EU defence buying, and why should suppliers care?

Three EU instruments now shape a lot of European defence buying: SAFE (Security Action for Europe), EDIP (the European Defence Industry Programme) and EDF (the European Defence Fund). None of them is a purchase order for you. Each one changes what primes must buy, how fast, and from where.

This guide is for suppliers of components, precision machining, electronics, materials, testing, software and engineering services. Defence construction, barracks and base infrastructure are bought through a different route and are out of scope here.

The money is already moving. EU Member States spent EUR 418 billion on defence in 2025, 20% more than in 2024, according to the European Defence Agency's Defence Data report. Equipment procurement alone rose to EUR 115 billion, and 24% of that equipment spending went through collaborative procurement.

The urgency comes from the production floor. When a prime has to deliver more of the same system, faster, every single-source part becomes a risk. One supplier with a full order book can stall a whole line.

A 2025 peer-reviewed study of European ammunition supply chains found that demand for defence materiel has grown past what suppliers can actually produce.

So buyers want a second source for parts they already buy, extra capacity in machining, electronics and testing, and parts made closer to home, because the money now rewards European content.

The gaps are well documented. A GLOBSEC survey of 280 defence companies found production held back by shortages of skilled labor, equipment and critical inputs. It also named fragmented certification, regulatory delays and limited advance payments for sub-tier suppliers.

Here is where that pressure lands by product family:

Who actually decides whether a new supplier gets in?

Inside a prime, approving a new supplier is a shared decision. Procurement opens the door. Quality checks your processes. Supply chain worries about risk. The program decides whether the part fits its schedule.

Before I build any list, I go back to past deals and find out who really signed off, and that answer sets the titles. I never search for a generic "manager" title. The list uses the titles that actually buy in that niche, including the quality people who will walk through your plant.

For defence primes and tier 1s, the map looks like this:

Who to contact first depends on what you sell:

• Selling a standard part family such as housings, cable assemblies or castings: commodity manager first, supplier quality engineer second.
• Selling spare capacity for a ramp-up: supply chain director first, supplier development second.
• If your plant location helps a buying country with local content: head of industrial cooperation first.
• Selling software, testing or engineering hours: program manager or engineering lead first, procurement once they want you.

Register on the prime's supplier portal anyway, because quality will ask for the same data later.

What must fit before a prime will buy from you?

The EU money is tied to output. The Commission says the 2026 EDIP work program is meant to "boost production capacity" and strengthen joint European procurement (European Commission, 30 March 2026).

A separate EU ammunition program, ASAP, selected 31 projects with EUR 500 million in funding, paid as grants for actions that add production capacity and fix bottlenecks (ASAP).

Buyers working under that pressure want suppliers who can make parts this year. Four proof lines tell them whether you are one:

When my team writes for a client, we start from the customers they already serve, because a past customer is proof a stranger can check.

The decision rule:

• All four lines strong and backed by numbers: contact primes and tier 1s now.
• Three strong: start with tier 1s and tier 2s that already buy your part family in civil work, and close the gap while you sell.
• Two or fewer: fix the proof before writing to anyone. A vague capability line rarely earns a second read.

For what proof-led LinkedIn campaigns look like in practice, see the LinkedIn outreach agency page.

What do SAFE and the 35 percent rule mean for suppliers?

SAFE lends money to Member States. It does not give grants to suppliers. The conditions attached to the loans flow straight down the supply chain, and Regulation (EU) 2025/1106 sets them out (this is not legal advice):

• The procurement is generally done in common, with at least one Member State receiving SAFE money plus one more participant from another Member State, an EEA EFTA country (Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein) or Ukraine. For a limited time, single-country buys are also allowed for urgent deliveries (SAFE overview).
• Contractors and subcontractors need executive management in the EU, the EEA EFTA area, or Ukraine. They cannot be controlled by a third country or third-country entity, with limited exceptions.
• Components from outside the EU, EEA EFTA States and Ukraine can account for no more than 35% of the end product's estimated cost.
• For certain products, the contractor must be able to decide on the design without restrictions imposed by third countries.

In supplier terms, the prime now has to count origin part by part. That turns your origin and ownership into a selling point or a problem:

• Made and managed inside the EU, EEA EFTA or Ukraine: say so in your first message. You help the prime stay under the limit.
• Using non-EU inputs such as chips, forgings or raw material: know their share of your part's cost before a buyer asks.
• Owned or controlled from outside those areas: expect control questions before technical ones, and get legal advice first.
• Able to replace a non-EU part the prime buys today: that is a direct opening under SAFE.

How do EDIP and EDF create supplier entry points?

EDIP pays for capacity. Its first calls appeared on the EU Funding & Tenders Portal on 31 March 2026. Joint procurement grants can reach EUR 20 million for each project and go to consortia of contracting authorities, so the applicants are buyers (European Commission).

The supplier-side route is the industrial reinforcement actions. Under them, companies can apply for grants to grow production of energetic components, key electronic parts, and finished defence systems and platforms. The grants are lump sums of up to 35% of eligible costs, and in some cases they can reach 50% (EDIP overview).

The second call, for key electronic components and for platforms and end-products, lists a submission deadline of 16 February 2027. If you make electronic parts or parts for defence platforms, read that call closely.

Two ways to use this. If you make one of those product types, the call may fund your own expansion. If you supply a prime that is applying, its bigger line will need more inputs, and the people writing that application are worth a conversation now.

The same EDIP page describes a planned Military Sales Catalogue, a single list of European and Ukrainian defence products that companies may be invited to fill in voluntarily. Use it for visibility. Treat it as one route among several, because a catalogue entry does not start a conversation with a commodity manager.

EDF works differently. It funds research and development through cross-border consortia, so the entry point is a project team that needs partners.

The Commission counts more than 2,500 SMEs with a central role in Europe's defence supply chains. In EDF calls, bringing in SMEs from another country is one of the criteria used to score bids (Defence SMEs).

That gives a prime's R&D lead a scoring reason to bring a smaller company from another country into a bid. The person to reach is whoever assembles the consortium, usually a program or engineering lead, sometimes the head of industrial cooperation.

How should outbound reach defence buyers by country and product family?

Pick the channel by country before you write a single message.

Germany is a LinkedIn-first market for us, because we do not cold email there without a compliant basis. For a software development client of ours there, 52 of 84 connection requests were accepted, and 40 of those 52 people replied. Over 6 months the campaign produced 488 sales calls. A defence list is far smaller, so every name counts.

Close to home is easier. Start with buyers within a day's drive of your plant. Someone who can visit you is easier to talk to than someone who has only read a message. In defence it matters more, because the quality team will walk your plant before anything is approved.

Then split by product family. I tell clients to commit one offer to one audience for 12 months, because the list, the titles and the proof all change with the offer. A machining list and an electronics list usually reach different buyers, even inside the same prime.

Now count the people. Say you find 300 primes and tier 1s that buy your part family, with 4 relevant titles each. That is 1,200 people for all of Europe, a small list by outbound standards.

This is where my usual rule bends. Normally I push for volume, because more volume means more chances to win, and a list of around 1,200 people cannot give you that.

A small market needs depth instead of width: more titles per account, longer sequences, and a second group of countries. And if the message does not convert with 1,200 people, it would not convert with 20,000 either.

If more than one person on your side does outreach, give each a separate territory so two people never write to the same commodity manager. How to build and count a list like this is in building a B2B lead list worth sending to.

What does a first outreach message to a defence buyer need to prove?

The first message sells a short call. Pitching your whole capability list in message one is the fastest way to get ignored. A commodity manager will not approve a supplier from a message. They will agree to 20 minutes if the four proof lines answer their first questions.

Here is an example draft for a machining supplier, written to show the structure:

Martin, we machine aluminum and titanium housings up to 600 mm, ISO 9001 and EN 9100 certified, for two civil aircraft programs. From January we have about 1,200 spindle hours a month free, all made and owned in the EU. If you are adding a second source for housings on a line that is ramping up, would a 20-minute call help?

Every line maps to one proof line or to the SAFE origin question. A buyer can check most of it on your website and certificates before replying.

A buyer also looks up your people long before the formal audit, so every page must say what the message says, with the same numbers.

A weak message sent from a strong profile still gets read, while a perfect message from an empty profile goes nowhere. So fix the profile of whoever sends the messages first, then your quality manager's, because a buyer will look up both before replying.

Follow-ups carry the deal. One or two messages never cover a buyer's busy weeks. Plan 5 to 6 touches, with real gaps between them. In our campaigns, the third follow-up is usually the one that works best. Each follow-up should add one new fact: a capacity update, a part drawing, an origin detail.

Set the goal at conversations started. Calls booked come later. Some markets decide slowly, and I plan for that instead of judging a campaign in its second month. Defence qualification, with audits and first article inspection, is one of those markets.

What is the fastest practical route for an established supplier?

Start from who already buys from you. I always begin targeting with past and current clients, then build the list from lookalikes of those accounts. For a defence supplier that means civil aerospace, rail or industrial groups that also have a defence division, and tier 1s you already ship to.

Work outward from there to similar primes and tier 1s in your country group. Build each list by product family. My team verifies every address before the first send and keeps the bounce rate below 0.5%.

Then run LinkedIn first, with email behind it. Email should not open the sequence; use it after a LinkedIn connection. The mechanics of running both channels as one sequence are in how LinkedIn and email work as one outreach sequence.

A worked example for a machining supplier whose list covers Germany, Austria and the Czech Republic plus other European markets:

Leave real gaps between steps. Outside Germany, Austria and the Czech Republic, cold email can add volume once the local rules are checked; the trade-offs of handing that to someone else are in what a cold email agency actually does. When a sequence works, scale it sideways by adding LinkedIn or email accounts to what already works.

Put a person on the replies. On bigger builds, my team has someone whose whole job is reading and answering replies, because one badly handled reply wastes the whole cost of that lead.

What should you do next if you are already supply-ready?

Before the first message goes out, check that you have:

• A counted list of target primes and tier 1s, split by product family and country group.
• Three or four buyer titles per account, taken from who approved you in past deals.
• The four proof lines written with numbers: certifications, programs supplied, part families, capacity.
• Origin and ownership facts ready for SAFE questions.
• A channel decision per country, with no cold email in Germany, Austria and the Czech Republic without a compliant basis.
• A follow-up plan of 5 to 6 touches, and one person who owns replies.

If you already send outreach and only need a clean defence buyer list, a custom lead list is the smaller step.

Get the four proof lines straight first, then build the buyer list around them.

If you are supply-ready and want help finding who signs you off at the European primes, book a call and we can work out the first accounts together.