no alt provided

How we work

The networks and relationships we forge are important in our national security engineering role for the UK government. Communication and collaboration are key with our own expert teams, with outside innovators, the national security community and wider government departments.

Working with the national security community

Since our early beginnings in 1938, we have been coming up with solutions to the tech challenges faced by government.


Today, the remit of technology we cover has grown hugely, but our function is the same. We enable the work of national security through the problems we solve and the technology we create.

How do we work? National security organisations, including the intelligence community, will present us with technology problems. That could be anything from intelligence gathering products to secure communications solutions.

HMGCC is known for then taking the problem, designing, creating, inventing and testing a solution, so it is fit for whatever unique purpose it services, wherever it will be used across the world.

Working with industry

As technology creators for government, the answer, for us, lies in collaboration - finding ways to partner with the world’s best innovators to help put the UK ahead of its adversaries.


Innovation is the core of what we do but critical and emerging technologies are now developing at such a pace. We have to look at the pioneering technologies being designed and created everywhere from the largest primes to the smallest start-ups.

Our task is to carry out a matchmaking exercise between industry and national security challenges, providing opportunities for outside expertise to be applied to our tech challenges.

One major tool we use to do this work is our HMGCC Co-Creation initiative, which employs shorter contracting times and streamlined ways of working to make the collaboration experience as positive as possible.

We recognise that innovation is everywhere and that’s why we reach out to both industry and academia to work with us.

Our experience working with HMGCC Co-Creation was characterised by a dynamic and collaborative approach, fostering agile decision-making and enabling impactful research outcomes”

University of Kent

Working with academia

HMGCC Co-Creation is a critical way in which universities and other educational organisations can work with us.


Many universities have already taken advantage of the funded technology challenges we publish through the initiative, working out how they can apply their ideas and innovation to real world problems faced by national security.

We also maximise opportunities to link up in other ways with positive actions such as funding PhDs and postdoctoral research. We hold sandpit events and support universities in how to turn research into real products for use in critical government work.