Our capabilities and customer relationships all ultimately derive from our people. Across the Cohort Group, our people can make a difference, fulfil their potential, develop their careers, and be rewarded for what they do.
All our subsidiaries are agile partnerships, delivering innovation that is truly mission critical. Our people provide independent, results-driven action, and in delivering this service, our people play a major role in the security of nations.
We recognise that success hinges on the attitudes and behaviours of our people. We create a climate and culture that encourages them to deliver outstanding performance for our customers, operating with uncompromising ethics. We encourage our people to role model our brand values that capture and articulate the spirit of the Group.
We are committed to making all of our businesses stimulating places to work with all of the benefits of a small, agile company but with the interesting and engaging work opportunities of a large company. We employ large numbers of highly qualified engineers, mathematicians and scientists and work at the highest level of strategic capability committed to responding to our customers’ needs. The depth of expertise and passion for defence and security of our people makes the critical difference for our customers. We constantly encourage them to think and do things differently, and to strive for innovative ways to create real value.
The success of our business depends on our ability to deliver innovative solutions to our customers. This drives us to attract and nurture the best talent and to nurture this ability within our employees, providing them with a stimulating workplace and career development, and supporting the creation of long-term value for our business. Many training schemes operate at subsidiary level, including the use of online solutions such as LinkedIn Learning and Skillcast.
At Group level, our Leadership Development Programme (LDP) is designed to equip our current and future leaders with the skills to deliver the strategic priorities of the business effectively and to respond to the competitive and changing environment we operate within. Following completion of the last LDP in February 2024, we commenced the latest round in May with a group of 17 participants from across the Cohort Group. The Group’s executive directors and senior representatives of the subsidiary businesses attended the launch event and will play an important part in the key events of the LDP process.
Every year we recognise the great achievements of teams and individuals across the Group through the Cohort Business Excellence Awards. Nominees consistently demonstrate overwhelmingly how they have 'played their part', many in a way that has had a real impact on national security. We recognise and reward our people for taking the initiative to think differently and deliver solutions that really benefit our customers and improve the way we work.
To ensure that we attract and retain the best and brightest people we provide our people with a competitive reward package which reflects their individual job responsibilities and contribution to business performance. We recognise and celebrate individual and team successes, provide learning and career progression opportunities, and offer a range of benefits (including Cohort plc share schemes) as part of a total package, which rewards employees fairly and competitively for the job they do.
Across the Group we run several apprenticeship and graduate programmes, incorporating both technical and non-technical specialists. There are currently 21 (2023: 14) graduates in the MASS and SEA graduate schemes, 23 (2023: 12) apprentices and 20 (2023: 2) internships/student placements in our schemes across the Group. The UK-based Cohort businesses are utilising their apprenticeship levy funding for new apprentices or to add to the skills of existing employees. We have supported the National Apprenticeship Week with presentations on apprenticeships and career paths at local schools.
We have continued to work with local schools, colleges or universities across all the Cohort businesses.
Our values
Our brand values describe the culture within the group and act as our guiding principles, improving how we work together and driving our focus on understanding the needs of our customers and creating innovative technology and delivering services to support them.
We believe in
Playing our part
We dedicate our expertise to advancing defence technology. It is our contribution to national interest and security, protecting people and keeping them safe. It is our way of making a difference.
We work at the highest levels of strategic capability and take great pride in our collective expertise. We operate with uncompromising ethics and offer up our talent and resources for the greater good of nations.
We believe in
Being results driven
We are an agile group of smart thinkers, with the ability to create solutions and the tenacity to see things through. If we say we’ll do something, then we’ll do it.
We’re interested, committed and personally invested in purposeful technology that delivers and makes good commercial sense.
We believe in
Independent thinking
Small teams do big things when they have the autonomy to think and to see the bigger picture - when they’re given the space and encouragement to explore, free of unnecessary process. Independent thinking and an entrepreneurial spirit help us inspire each other to find better ways of working and create the conditions for new ideas to unfold. It’s how we come to better understand the challenges before us and adapt swiftly to reach the most effective solution.
