The British newspaper “The Telegraph” investigated the standards and loopholes in the United Kingdom that prevent defense startups from developing.
The return of international tensions, the war on European soil, and the presence of three predatory powers (United States, Russia, China) have forced European countries to redefine their priorities and reinvest in defense. Like France, the UK has focused on drones. But could the enemy of innovation be bureaucracy? This is the thesis of “The Telegraph,” which highlights the difficulty that startups face not in producing in the UK, but in testing their technologies there. With a slogan: “These drones can beat Putin, not bureaucracy.”
“Exceptional British companies have emerged in recent years,” explains Toby McCrindle, a lawyer who advises many of them. They have recruited some of the best engineers from our universities, raised funds, and developed world-class capabilities. But we find ourselves in an absurd situation where they must send their equipment out of the UK to test it. The cause: spaces too limited to conduct truly useful experiments and a sprawling bureaucracy. Obtaining testing authorization in Great Britain is often formidable and involves navigating through a maze of administrative formalities.
“The Telegraph” cites the example of ZeroUSV, which builds autonomous boats. The company is only allowed to navigate in less than 4 square kilometers of open sea in the bay of Plymouth, while during a NATO exercise in September 2025, the startup could operate freely over some 860 square kilometers of ocean. “It’s like having a new car and not being able to leave the driveway,” says the company’s CEO Matthew Ratsey. They learn almost nothing about their fully autonomous boat because they are only allowed to make a few laps in the bay. And even to get this meager authorization, they had to spend six months drafting over 400 pages of documentation to comply with the Maritime and Coastguard Agency’s workboat code.
As a result of this “absurdistan,” many startups go to countries like Ukraine, the U.S., Spain, Norway, Estonia, or Lithuania to fly their drones, navigate, and conduct tests. “We are not against regulation,” stresses Ratsey. “But we believe it should be tailored to its purpose and support innovative companies like ours.”
“We do not have adequate testing facilities; we do not have the necessary shooting ranges to evaluate anything other than drones or relatively limited systems,” laments McCrindle. If you want to test an interceptor system against drones that must fly at a specific speed and altitude critically, you simply cannot do it in the UK. A spokesperson for the Maritime and Coastguard Agency stated that the agency is “committed to supporting innovators and unlocking growth in the maritime sector,” while the government claims to want “the UK to be a global leader in drone technologies,” working “with the industry alongside regulators to develop this sector while preserving airspace security.”
These statements do not reassure Ratsey much: “We have a real advantage in Britain right now. But we will lose it if we are not allowed to continue progressing. Right now, we are shooting ourselves in the foot.”
