Esport tournaments to improve digital skills of UK military
At the request of the UK Ministry of Defence, the British Esports Federation will organise a tournament for defence personnel and members of industry.
The competition will help to improve digital and cyber skills among UK military personnel through a new esports collaboration, which will include a focus on artificial intelligence and drone operations.
A new initiative – the International Defence Esports Games (IDEG) – will help to foster these coveted skills in defence.
The IDEG tournament will take place in 2026. It is open to all personnel, including reservists. Soon, IDEG intend to expand to include cadets, veterans, civil servants, and anyone working in the defence industry.
The event is being supported by Defence suppliers, including BAE Systems, as well as several smaller military technology companies.
Moreover, the tournament is set to take place at an opportune time just after the construction of the UK’s flagship Gaming and Esports Arena, which British Esports was lately given approval to build.
The 15,000ft² arena, equipped with a 200-seat theatre and a 17 metre-wide LED screen, sits alongside the National Esports Performance Campus (NEPC) in Sunderland.
CyberEM
According to the Strategic Defence Review (SDR), which provides a sense of the direction of UK Defence in the next ten years, the cyber and electromagnetic (EM) domain is the only space that is contested by adversaries on a daily basis.
Crucially, this domain will be the “foundation” of the military’s forthcoming Digital Targeting Web which will enable choice and speed in degrading or destroying enemy targets.
Militaries have a gap to fill when it comes to digital skills. The requirement has also induced a change in culture across defence. The British Army commander of the Specialist Group Information Services, General Gary Munch, cast doubt on the retiring process for reservists between the age of 55 and 60.
This plan is counter-intuitive, Munch suggested, given the need to retain certain skills that are already in short supply.
This is recognised by the authors of the SDR. They recommend that the new CyberEM Command must be a “whole force” endeavour, with its structure largely filled by a mixture of civilians and reserves, “given that greater expertise exists in the civilian sector.” Thus, esports is just one method to mobilise digital skills in defence.
Esports in defence
“From drone operations to data analysis, modern defence and deterrence needs agile minds that can navigate both physical and digital battlegrounds,” observed Al Carns, the Minister for Veterans and People.
The Royal Navy has already begun to lean on esports as a stream for digital skills in its sailors’ downtime on board HMS Prince of Wales, one of two British diesel-electric aircraft carriers currently operating with allies in the Indo-Pacific.
Its 1,200 crew (including F-35 aviators) will have the chance to participate in the vessel’s esports suite. The facility includes 12 high-end Alienware Aurora R15 gaming desktop PCs, powered by NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 and Intel Core i7 processors.
It will join other sports facilities onboard, including gyms, a boxing ring, plus areas for table tennis and running.
“We’ve learned from our Ukrainian partners about how esports can train drone operators and cyber security specialists,” noted Lieutenant General Tom Copinger-Symes, deputy commander of Strategic Command, soon to be Cyber and Specialist Operations Command.
“People are quickly grasping how esports can change perspectives and enhance skills, as well as reaching across borders with our international allies and partners,” he added.
Other allied nations have also taken to esports, including the French Armed Forces, who have organised several esport competitions since 2021 through the Air and Space Force Association.
Similarly, the United States Armed Forces have identified gaming, exercises, modelling, and simulation as a critical enabler for future force readiness and skills training, with annual US investments in this market forecast to exceed the $26bn mark in 2028 according to GlobalData’s figures.
According to a GlobalData report on ‘Gamification and Simulation Training’ (2024), civilian entities have leveraged new technologies and gamification practices to great effect, enhancing learning and information retention through more engaging and practical educational content.
There is also a growing body of academic work highlighting the benefits of gamified content with regard to user motivation, information processing, and retention capacity.
“As military forces worldwide recruit personnel from increasingly young and tech-savvy populations, ‘serious gaming’ has the potential to address widespread force readiness challenges and provide more reliable results than current rate memorisation-based education programmes,” GlobalData analysts stated.
