Preventing the event: engineering our national security

Across the country there is a complex network of businesses and organisations working together to defend the UK from ever-evolving threats including terrorism, cyber-attacks and the actions of rogue states.

One such company is L3Harris, the newly formed global defence company, whose operations in Gloucestershire are focussed on using advanced cyber security and electronic warfare techniques to ‘prevent the event’.

Alice Smith - Advanced Engineer, L3Harris

From its new state-of-the-art premises on the edge of the picturesque town of Tewkesbury, L3Harris has 180 engineers solving problems from encrypting government communications to preventing improvised explosive devices from being detonated remotely.

One of these is Alice Smith, an Advanced Engineer working on one of the organisation’s crypto cyber security projects.

Alice, who is focussed primarily on front end user interface development using Java, was led to explore a career in the defence industry by her keenness for problem solving. “I’ve always been interested in solving problems and trying to understand how things work,” she said. "Working at L3Harris allows me to test my brain and understand complex problems on a daily basis, and I love it."