The defence supply chain in Portsmouth: how an engineering firm gets found by procurement, not by the public
Two-thirds of the Navy's surface fleet is based at Portsmouth. How a local engineering firm gets found by the buyers who support it: capability, JOSCAR.
By Daniel Stoychev, Webso Digital · 6 October 2026 · 8 min read
HMNB Portsmouth is the home of about two-thirds of the Royal Navy's surface fleet, including both aircraft carriers, and ship support at the base is run by BAE Systems Maritime Services. Around that sits a supply chain of machinists, fabricators, hydraulics specialists, electrical contractors, NDT inspectors and small engineering firms across Portsmouth, Fareham and Havant, and most of their websites are built as if the customer were the public. The buyer is not the public. It is a procurement person at a prime contractor or at the Ministry of Defence, searching for a capability with a place name, checking accreditations before they ring, and looking for the firm on JOSCAR, the supplier register that BAE Systems, Rolls-Royce Submarines, Leonardo, Lockheed Martin and more than thirty other buyers use. The site that wins that reader has a capability page per process, the certificates with numbers and dates, and a supplier page that says how to engage. Reviews and the map, which decide a plumber's year, barely feature.
What procurement actually searches
The searches are capability plus place, or capability plus standard: "CNC machining Portsmouth", "hydraulic hose assembly Hampshire", "AS9100 fabrication Fareham", "NDT inspection Portsmouth", "marine electrical contractor Portsmouth Harbour". They are made by someone with a specification in the other window, usually on a desktop, usually in working hours. The volumes are small and the value per search is large, which is the opposite of the trade pattern, and it means the page has to be precise rather than popular.
The second search is the check: the firm's name, then the firm's name with "JOSCAR", "ISO 9001", "Cyber Essentials" or "Companies House". If the website does not answer those in one click, the buyer answers them elsewhere and forms a view before the first call.
The pages a supplier site needs
| Page | What it answers | What goes on it |
|---|---|---|
| Capability, one page per process | Can you do this, to what tolerance, at what scale | The process, the machines or plant by name, capacities, tolerances, materials, lead times, a photograph of the actual shop floor |
| Accreditations | Are you approved, and can I check | ISO 9001, AS9100, ISO 14001 and the rest, each with the certificate number, the issuing body and the expiry date, linked to the register where one exists |
| Cyber and security | Can you hold our data | Cyber Essentials or Cyber Essentials Plus with the certificate date; what you will and will not say about clearances |
| Supplier page | How do I engage you | JOSCAR registration, Companies House number, DUNS if you have one, insurance levels, payment terms, who to send an RFQ to and how fast you answer |
| Work | Have you done this before | Case studies with what can be said: the sector, the process, the scale, the outcome, and never the detail a contract forbids |
The accreditations page is the one most sites get wrong, with a row of logos and no numbers. A logo is a claim; a certificate number with an expiry date is a fact the buyer can verify in a minute, and verifying it is their job.
JOSCAR, said plainly
JOSCAR is a supplier register run by Hellios for the defence, aerospace and security sector. Buyers including BAE Systems, Rolls-Royce Submarines, Leonardo and Lockheed Martin use it to hold standard compliance information on roughly six thousand suppliers, so that each prime does not have to ask the same questions separately. A supplier registers by completing the questionnaire, and a buyer looking for a local firm will often look there before the open web. Registration is not SEO, but being registered and saying so on the supplier page is, because the buyer's second search is your name with JOSCAR after it.
Search your own company name with "ISO 9001" after it. If the first result is a certificate directory rather than your accreditations page, the buyer is reading someone else's version of your firm.
Where the trade playbook does not apply
- Google reviews: nice to have, almost never read by a procurement officer. Do not run a reviews routine for this audience; run a case-study routine instead.
- The map: a buyer at a desk in Bristol does not search "near me". The Google Business Profile should exist and be accurate, with the right category and the address, and that is all.
- Town pages: the buyer searches the capability and the county, not the town. One strong page per process beats a page per town every time.
- Blog posts about the industry: a buyer wants your lead time, not your view on the defence budget. A guide earns when it answers a technical question the buyer actually has, such as what a particular standard requires of a sub-contractor.
LinkedIn as the second website
Procurement people and engineers at the primes are on LinkedIn, and a company page there with the same capability statements, the same accreditation list and the same photographs is the second place a buyer looks after the site. Keep the two consistent: the same process names, the same certificate dates. A LinkedIn page that says AS9100 and a website that does not is a question the buyer has to ask, and buyers do not like asking.
What to expect
Capability-plus-place searches move within weeks, because few supplier sites in the area have a page per process at all. The check searches move as soon as the accreditations page exists. The measure is not clicks, which will be small; it is RFQs that arrive by email from firms you have not worked for, and the supplier page should ask where they found you. One new prime in a year pays for the site many times over, and that is the honest scale of this work.
Questions on this topic
Does a defence supplier in Portsmouth need Google reviews?
Not for this audience. Procurement reads accreditations, case studies and the supplier register; a reviews routine is effort spent on the wrong reader. Keep the Google profile accurate and put the effort into the capability pages.
What is JOSCAR and should we be on it?
A supplier register run by Hellios and used by BAE Systems, Rolls-Royce Submarines, Leonardo, Lockheed Martin and more than thirty other defence, aerospace and security buyers. If you want work from those primes, registration is usually expected, and saying you are registered belongs on your supplier page.
What should the accreditations page show?
Each standard with the certificate number, the issuing body and the expiry date, linked to the register where one exists. A row of logos without numbers is a claim; a number with a date is something the buyer can check, and checking is their job.
Should we have pages for Fareham, Havant and Gosport?
No. A buyer searches the capability with the county or the city, not the town, and sits at a desk that may be in another part of the country. One page per process, with the location stated once, serves them better.
Can we publish case studies on defence work?
Within what the contract allows. The sector, the process, the scale and the outcome can usually be said; the detail often cannot. Write what is permitted and say that the rest is not, which is itself a signal a buyer reads correctly.