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Future skills hub

Advanced and smart materials

Advanced & smart materials

Advanced and smart materials are not simply a research topic for engineering and manufacturing SMEs. They are becoming part of the practical language of competitiveness. See what these changes mean, and how they can give businesses the competitive edge.

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The importance of advanced and smart materials

In many sectors, firms are being asked to deliver products that are lighter, stronger, more durable, more heat-resistant, more conductive, more corrosion-resistant, or better able to sense and respond to their operating environment. In that sense, materials innovation is no longer something that sits only in the laboratory. It increasingly shapes what manufacturers can make, how they make it, and the kinds of markets they can serve.

Within the Future Skills Hub, this theme sits alongside Defence & emerging technologies under the banner of Advanced Production Technologies & National Capability. Its relevance lies not only in technical novelty, but in how SMEs can build stronger positions in higher-value supply chains.

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Why advanced and smart materials matter now

Advanced materials are materials engineered to deliver properties beyond those of conventional materials. Smart materials go a step further by responding in controlled ways to changes in stress, temperature, light, electric or magnetic fields, moisture, or other external conditions.

For SMEs, the important point is not the terminology itself, it is what these materials make possible. They can help improve product performance, extend component life, reduce maintenance, support new sensing or functional capability, and create more differentiated offers in demanding markets.

This is especially important in sectors such as aerospace, energy, defence, medical devices, electronics, transport, and specialist industrial equipment. In these markets, customers are rarely buying a raw material in isolation – they are buying a performance outcome.

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Main opportunities for SMEs

Advanced coatings

This is one of the clearest entry points, where improved surface performance can create value through better wear resistance, thermal protection, corrosion control, conductivity or environmental durability.

Nanomaterials and functional materials

A second route exists where enhanced structural, electrical, thermal or sensing behaviour can improve products in sectors such as electronics, transport, healthcare or energy.

Surface treatment and functional surfaces

This is where the surface itself becomes part of the value proposition by reducing friction, resisting fouling, improving fatigue life, or enabling more specialist forms of performance.

Smart materials

This category connects materials innovation to wider digital and systems trends. Shape-memory materials, self-sensing surfaces and responsive materials point towards products in which the material is no longer just passive structure, but part of how the system functions.

For most SMEs, the opportunity is unlikely to begin with inventing an entirely new material. It is more likely to lie in a specialist capability that solves a clear industrial problem.


Why policy and markets are changing

Advanced and smart materials are becoming more important because they sit underneath multiple strategic sectors at once. They support aerospace, defence, energy, electronics, medical technology, batteries, transport, and a wide range of advanced manufacturing applications.

The UK’s industrial strategy increasingly treats advanced materials as part of national capability. That matters for SMEs because it reinforces that future opportunity will not come only from discovery, but from the ability to industrialise, qualify, and scale advanced materials in commercially useful ways.

This also increases the importance of supply-chain resilience, process assurance, and secure manufacturing. In some markets, especially high-integrity or dual-use ones, firms may need stronger capability in traceability, documentation, qualification, and controlled production environments.

Wider policy work also suggests some of the priority directions likely to matter over time, including bio-based materials with stronger circularity potential, recyclable carbon-reinforced plastics for applications such as wind turbine blades and aircraft structures, and sodium-ion battery systems that may reduce dependence on more constrained materials.

The skills that matter most

The skills challenge in advanced and smart materials is broader than it first appears. These are not fields that can be staffed by materials scientists alone, nor by production engineers alone.

Firms need people who understand material behaviour, degradation, process-property relationships and the demands of real end-use environments. But they also need people who can translate laboratory or pilot knowledge into stable industrial production.

That means stronger capability in process control, automation, scale-up engineering, statistical assurance and production repeatability. Digital capability matters too, because process data, qualification evidence and materials performance data are becoming part of the competitive advantage.

There is also a commercial and regulatory layer. In many of the most attractive markets, firms need stronger capability in standards, qualification planning, traceability, controlled documentation and customer-facing quality assurance.

In addition, thought should be given to developing skills in data and AI, life cycle assessment, carbon accounting and practical technical competence. In this field, firms need people who can work not only with materials and process science, but also with digital monitoring, sustainability requirements, prototyping and real-world industrial testing.

For many SMEs, the real challenge is not finding one specialist. It is building a workforce in which technical, manufacturing, digital and commercial skills can work together effectively.

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Practical steps for SMEs

1. Identify your adjacent capability

The most useful starting point is not to try to “enter advanced materials” in general. It is to identify where the business already has adjacent strengths that could be repositioned into a more valuable niche.

Ask where you already have strengths in coatings, finishing, surface treatment, automation, materials testing, or precision process control. Then ask whether those capabilities relate to markets where heat, wear, corrosion, fatigue, shielding, low weight, or sensing matter.

2. Focus on a niche with clear value

From there, the aim is to focus on a niche where performance, data, and qualification matter more than volume. That might be a life-extension coating, a functional surface, a specialist process, a testing and assurance niche, or a route into a higher-value end use.

A good practical route might be to focus on becoming a strong translator of new material capability into customer value. That may mean adapting an advanced material supplied by others into a niche product, a performance-improving surface treatment, or a manufacturable process that solves a specific market problem.

3. Build a process, data, and a qualification advantage

The strongest SME position is often built around a combination of a specialist process, strong process data, credible qualification capability, and a customer-facing value proposition tied to performance and risk reduction.

4. Use external facilities and partnerships

SMEs should also make active use of external facilities and partnerships. Advanced materials are rarely easy to commercialise in isolation. Access to research centres, Catapult networks, pilot facilities, collaborative R&D programmes, and sector bodies can make the difference between a promising idea and a viable industrial offer.

5. Prepare for secure and regulated markets

Where firms are targeting secure or regulated markets, they should also begin strengthening traceability, quality systems, standards awareness, and production discipline early.

Key support available

SMEs can access useful support for advanced and smart materials through an assortment of organisations and programmes which we've listed out below.

The most useful resources are often the ones that combine technical depth with practical access to pilots, facilities, partners, and real qualification pathways. For many SMEs, the most useful support will come from joining networks, using open-access facilities, and building collaborative development relationships.

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Summary

Advanced and smart materials are not simply a future science story.

They are part of how firms can move into higher-value manufacturing, improve product performance, support national capability and secure stronger positions in demanding markets.

The strongest opportunities are unlikely to sit in commodity materials production. They are more likely to sit in specialised processes, qualified performance, functional integration and defensible know-how.

The Future Skills Hub is here to help firms move from general awareness of advanced materials to practical, credible routes into the market.

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