The Change in Defence: Software and Interoperability
TechMarketView has published its Defence: Disruptors and Innovators 2026 report, looking at the companies it believes are reshaping the UK defence Software and IT Services market, and we’re proud to announce that 2iC is one of them.
Of the 24 companies identified in the report, ten were selected to profile in greater depth, and 2iC has been included alongside a further nine organisations leading the way in their respective fields. Whilst we’re pleased to be recognised, we’re excited to delve into the why companies like 2iC are being recognised in the first place. And that’s because defence is changing.
Software is Becoming Fundamental to Military Capability
For years, Defence has been buying: aircraft, vehicles, sensors, effectors, communications equipment. All of which are individually capable, and all have been procured to solve a particular problem or serve a particular requirement. But the problem comes when we expect all of those things to work together.
Modern military capability isn’t determined solely by how good an individual platform is. Increasingly, it is determined by how effectively platforms, systems and people can share information and act upon it. That makes software and, crucially, interoperability fundamental to operational effectiveness.
TechMarketView reaches a similar conclusion. Its report argues that software is now a primary determinant of how effectively equipment and personnel are used and identifies a growing group of software businesses changing the traditional defence market. The significance here being that buying more technology won’t solve Defence’s digital problems if the technology we already have cannot communicate.
Classifying a Defence Disruptor
The word “disruptor” gets used a lot in technology, sometimes rather generously. TechMarketView has attempted to give it some structure, dividing the companies it identifies into nine categories ranging from sovereign technology providers and autonomous systems software pioneers through to AI-first decision support innovators and Digital Targeting Web enablers. 2iC appears in two categories: Digital Targeting Web Enabler and Defence Insider.
TechMarketView defines Defence Insiders as companies where deep knowledge of defence operations, architectures or standards provides the foundation of their competitive advantage. For us, this is literally our bread and butter. 2iC’s founders didn’t simply learn how Defence interoperability standards work. We helped write them.
The Platform That Connected it All
Founders Graham Booth and Nick Peach contributed to the Generic Soldier, Vehicle and Base Architecture Defence Standards, and 2iC’s Lean Services Architecture subsequently became an open MOD standard.
Interoperability cannot depend on every supplier building another bespoke integration every time two systems need to communicate. It’s slow and expensive, it creates dependencies, and perhaps most importantly, it makes it harder to introduce new technology quickly.
If Defence genuinely wants to exploit the pace of innovation taking place across AI, autonomy, sensors, effectors and communications, then we need architectures that allow those capabilities to be introduced without redesigning the battlespace every time something changes. Open standards matter because they allow different companies to build technology that can work together. And whilst this report is a big step in the right direction, Defence still has a long way to go.
The Digital Targeting Web Makes Interoperability Even More Important
TechMarketView also identifies 2iC as a Digital Targeting Web Enabler. Connecting sensors, decision-makers and effectors so that information can move quickly through the battlespace environment requires far more than connecting a few systems together.
Different technologies have different interfaces, protocols, data models, security requirements and communications constraints. Those differences don’t disappear because we want a faster targeting cycle, they have to be dealt with, and the answer cannot always be to replace existing equipment with something newer. Defence has invested billions in platforms and systems that will remain in service for years, sometimes decades. We need to make better use of what we already have while making it easier to introduce what comes next: the fundamental interoperability problem that 2iC’s solution solves.
Small Businesses Solving Big Defence Problems
The ten organisations profiled include major and rapidly growing defence technology businesses alongside specialist UK SMEs. But the report highlights 2iC and its digital interoperability solutions that have been used by defence organisations in the UK, US, Australia and New Zealand, alongside the company’s contribution to UK defence standards and programmes.
In short, innovation and influence are not necessarily determined by company size. Instead, deep domain expertise, open architectures and software that solves genuine operational problems can allow specialist SMEs to have an impact far beyond their headcount.
Recognition and the Direction of Defence
We’re proud and grateful that TechMarketView has recognised 2iC as both a Defence Insider and Digital Targeting Web Enabler, but we’re even more pleased with the wider picture it paints.
Software-first businesses are becoming more important. UK SMEs are developing genuinely valuable Defence IP. New procurement routes are beginning to get capability into end-users’ hands faster. And interoperability is increasingly being recognised as an operational requirement rather than an integration problem to worry about later.
Whilst there’s plenty still to fix, if we want a Defence ecosystem capable of adopting technology at the speed the threat demands, we need to stop treating software, open standards and interoperability as supporting activities and class them as part of the capability. At 2iC, we’ve believed that for a long time, and it’s great to see the market recognising it too.
Subscribers of TechMarketView can read the full report as part of their paid subscription.
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2iC Limited are global leaders in digital interoperability in the battlespace. Our unique software layer liberates human capability in the battlespace by digitally automating the exchange of mission-critical and actionable information between commanders, operators and equipment across land, sea and air in challenging environments where network connections are Denied, Degraded, Intermittent, and Limited (DDIL). For more information on the solutions we provide, reach out to us directly via info@2icworld.com
