Saab Australia doubles workforce to 900, with 300 extra jobs by mid 2024 ahead of new facility move

The group is preparing to next year open a new $80m-plus defence manufacturing and education hub at Adelaide’s Mawson Lakes.

Managing director Andy Keough (R), with Head of Autonomous Systems, SAAB Australia, Rebecca Brickhill, and Dave Symonds, General Manager of the Maritime division of SAAB Australia, at the Mawson Lakes construction site. Picture: Dean Martin

Saab Australia is on track to recruit its 1000th employee early next year, ahead of the opening of a new $80m-plus defence manufacturing and education hub at Mawson Lakes.

The milestone comes 35 years after the Swedish defence giant set up shop in Australia to deliver platform management and combat systems for the Collins-class submarines and Anzac-class frigates.

Saab’s work delivering combat management systems for the Royal Australian Navy has been the main driver of growth in recent years, with the company more than doubling its local workforce over the past five years to more than 900, including 700 in Adelaide.

And it’s on the hunt for more software, combat system, hardware and systems engineers ahead of the opening of a new Sovereign Combat System Collaboration Centre in the middle of next year.

Defence and engineering firm Saab Australia has more than doubled its local workforce over the past five years to more than 900, including 700 in Adelaide. Picture: Dean Martin

Supported by a $22.6m federal grant secured under the former Morrison government’s Modern Manufacturing initiative, the facility will be the first of its kind in Australia, bringing together some of the country’s most innovative small and medium size companies to develop and manufacture world-leading naval defence systems.

Saab Australia managing director Andy Keough said the facility would create more hi-tech engineering jobs and further support Australia’s emerging defence capability.

“About mid next year we’ll be moving into that facility — that’s an additional 300 roles, new lab spaces for us to do the integration work for the combat systems,” he said.

“It’s a significant investment. Saab owns its properties, has since we started — we built the first building at Mawson Lakes and this will give us the biggest landholding, biggest number of people up there.

“And it’s not just defence work. We’ve done some work in the civil security market as well. Space is a particularly important domain for us, just as cyber is as well.

“The future of warfare has already moved into space. It’s so essential from a command, control and communications perspective, and so understanding what’s going on in space, understanding how various assets are being moved around in space to either influence or interact with other space systems is critically important for us understanding the domain.”

A former commander of two Collins-class submarines, Mr Keough spent 22 years in the Royal Australian Navy before stepping into the corporate world with Thales.

He later held stints with ASC and Defence SA, before being headhunted to take the top job at Saab’s Australian operations in 2017.

Artist's impression of Saab Australia's Sovereign Combat System Collaboration Centre at Mawson Lakes. Picture: Supplied by Saab Australia

Amid the geopolitical tensions currently simmering across the world, Mr Keough said it was more important than ever for Australia to develop its sovereign defence capability.

“We look at the geostrategic environment and there doesn’t seem to be any indicators there that it’s getting any easier or any simpler, and if anything it’s going in the opposite direction,” he said.

“I think Covid gave us an excellent example of the importance of us understanding sovereign capability.

“The global supply chains now are far more complex than ever before, and when you have significant shocks in the global economy you need to make sure, as a nation, that we’ve got sufficient capability in Australia in order to be able to meet our security requirements.”

With the landmark AUKUS agreement putting Australia on a path to closer collaboration with the US and UK defence industries, Mr Keough said Saab’s 35-year history in Australia offered a template of how to effectively import global expertise in order to create new economic opportunities in defence and related industries.

“The trajectory of Saab was winning a contract, coming in, establishing a business, transferring technology to the local Australians, leaving local Australians to then deliver those programs and move into adjacent sectors as we have in the security domain,” he said.

“But also then looking to export. And that’s what Saab has done with exports to New Zealand, Canada, Thailand, we’re doing work for Finland, Bulgaria, Germany at the moment.

“The consoles that we designed here and that we manufacture here in South Australia, using our supply chain with Sage Automation — they are now being exported overseas to Germany and Bulgaria.

“So that’s the trajectory that we will continually see in the future as these new companies come in, set up operations, deliver, expand, and then hopefully export out.”