Business development in European defence typically means multi-year procurement timelines and relationship-driven partnerships rather than the fast transactional selling common in commercial tech. BD professionals at defence companies spend much of their time navigating public tenders, building relationships with military end-users and programme offices, managing offset and industrial participation obligations, and working through the regulatory layers that govern defence exports. Companies hiring BD roles range from startups like GomSpace (nanosatellites, Denmark), PowerUP Energy Technologies (hydrogen fuel cells, Estonia) and EnduroSat (satellite platforms, Bulgaria) to major primes including Thales, BAE Systems, Airbus Defence, Leonardo, Rheinmetall and MBDA.
