India's defence manufacturing sector hit a record ₹1.78 lakh crore (approximately $21 billion) in production in FY 2025-26, with exports surging nearly 63% to ₹38,424 crore and Indian-made equipment now reaching over 80 countries — but industry leaders warn the workforce needed to sustain this growth is not keeping pace. Specialised roles in areas such as radar engineering, avionics, propulsion, and quantum communications currently make up less than 5% of the existing defence workforce, and up to 45% of these positions could remain unfilled by 2030 according to a report by staffing firm Quess Corp, risking bottlenecks across aircraft, unmanned systems, and naval programmes. Founders and executives interviewed say the core problem is not a shortage of engineers per se, but a shortage of engineers trained for the battlefield realities of ruggedisation, systems integration, and qualification — skills that conventional university programmes rarely provide — while veterans seeking to enter the sector through government support schemes such as iDEX (Innovation for Defence Excellence, a programme launched in 2018 to fund start-ups and small firms) report difficulty accessing meaningful backing despite their operational expertise.