Europe’s civil aerospace and defence equipment face growing risks from critical raw materials shortages

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Titanium and rare earths sit inside every fighter jet, airliner and drone – and a small number of nations hold the keys. New report from Roland Berger lays out a decade-defining risk to aerospace and defence delivery.

FARNBOROUGH, 20 July 2026 - Europe's aerospace and defence industry faces mounting supply chain risk from its continued dependence on non-NATO sources for critical raw materials according to a new report from Roland Berger launched today at the Farnborough International Airshow.

The report, “Building resilience in Europe's aerospace & defence supply chains”, examines both the European Union’s list of 34 critical raw materials and NATO’s twelve defence-critical raw materials, highlighting how shortages could directly disrupt production and capability delivery across civil and military aerospace platforms, including emerging electric and hybrid-electric systems.

Titanium and rare earth elements (REEs), the metals behind engines, airframes, radars and electric motors, present the most acute vulnerabilities given their concentrated production in a small number of countries.

Rachel Hugo, Senior Partner at Roland Berger and co-author of the report, said: “Raw materials are fast becoming a critical risk to aerospace and defence supply chains. Governments and industry must invest now in the partnerships required for sourcing and recycling to ensure continued access for generations to come.”

Rising demand, concentrated supply

The report highlights how demand for critical raw materials across the A&D sector is accelerating, driven by the ramp-up in civil aircraft production, rising military orders amid heightened geopolitical tensions, and the growing electrification of platforms such as unmanned aerial systems. At the same time, Europe remains concentrated in downstream production activities, while the upstream extraction and processing of these materials typically takes place outside NATO.

Titanium: a structural bottleneck

Titanium demand from the A&D sector could reach 600–700 kilo tons over the next decade, the report finds, with airframe structures accounting for around 60% of that total. Roughly half of the world's high-grade titanium sponge currently originates from a small number of nations, and Western programmes retain an estimated 20% exposure to non-NATO-origin forged components. Without faster scaling of sponge production and recycling capacity outside these two countries, the report projects that a cumulative supply gap of approximately 100 kilo tons could emerge over the coming decade

Adam Healy, Partner at Roland Berger and co-author of the report said: “No single organisation can address these constraints alone. Building a resilient raw materials ecosystem requires coordinated investment across OEMs, suppliers and governments.”

The path forward

The report sets out three broad mitigation pathways available to industry and governments: scaling domestic production capacity, expanding large-scale recycling, and developing material substitutes, which all carry their own technical, economic and timing constraints. It points to examples of government intervention already underway, including the US Department of Defense's ten-year offtake agreement with MP Materials and the European Union's funding of a rare earth magnet facility in Estonia, alongside private investment such as Apple's US$500 million commitment to MP Materials.

Roland Berger estimates that more than €60 billion has been invested via deals and M&A in critical raw materials relevant to aerospace and defence outside China since 2023, with tens of billions more committed in public funding across Europe and the US over the same period – though only a fraction of this secured output is expected to reach the A&D sector specifically.

The report concludes that securing supply will require a combined effort: companies identifying the materials most critical to their own operations and bottlenecks, and pursuing tailored mitigation strategies working together with governments and across the industry.