New Report: Aerospace & Defense Manufacturing Investment More Than Doubles as Industry Enters New Growth Cycle

Global Location Strategies issues "2026 Best Places for Aerospace & Defense Insights Report" highlighting the top U.S. locations positioned to lead the next generation of industry manufacturing

Wichita, Kansas ranks #1 for aerospace and defense manufacturing investment in the U.S.

Workforce and supplier bottlenecks threaten to slow the industry's manufacturing boom

GREENVILLE, S.C., July 16, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Global Location Strategies (GLS), the world's leading location strategy and site selection advisory firm, today released the inaugural "2026 Best Places for Aerospace & Defense Insights Report," identifying the most competitive U.S. metropolitan regions for aerospace and defense investment while revealing a fundamental shift reshaping one of America's most strategic industries.

The report ranks 387 U.S. metropolitan areas based on a comprehensive analysis of long-term competitiveness, combining more than 120 quality and operating cost factors.

Wichita, Kansas earned the top spot, but the rankings only tell part of the story. According to the report, the industry has entered a new phase, where success depends less on breakthrough innovation and more on the ability to rapidly scale manufacturing, secure skilled workers, strengthen supply chains, and deliver production at speed.

"For decades, aerospace and defense companies competed on technological superiority," said Didi Caldwell, Founder and President, Global Location Strategies. "Today, the competitive advantage is increasingly defined by industrial readiness. The regions that can build, hire, and scale manufacturing quickly will attract the next generation of investment."

Industry Highlights

The report identifies several major trends transforming aerospace and defense manufacturing nationwide:

• Announced U.S. industry investment has more than doubled between 2022-2023 and 2024-2025, while project announcements have nearly tripled, signaling the start of a new defense-driven growth cycle.
• The industry is shifting from an innovation-first model to one centered on production readiness, manufacturing scale, and supply chain resilience, fundamentally changing how companies evaluate future investment locations.
• Workforce and supplier constraints have replaced demand uncertainty as the industry's primary growth barrier, making industrial capacity a key competitive advantage.
• Federal spending is increasingly concentrated in strategic priorities including missiles, munitions, space systems, autonomous technologies, and advanced electronics, creating new opportunities for regions with the capabilities to support those sectors.
• U.S.-based companies account for approximately 70% of announced industry manufacturing projects, while European firms represent more than half of all foreign direct investment into the sector.

The Industry's Biggest Challenge Isn't Demand

Among the report's most notable findings is that aerospace and defense manufacturers no longer face a shortage of demand. Instead, the industry's greatest obstacle has become the ability to meet it. Labor shortages, engineering talent, security-cleared workers, supplier bottlenecks, and manufacturing capacity now represent the primary constraints on future growth.

Among the report's findings:

• Industry employment has grown about 11% since 2021, compared with roughly 4% for manufacturing overall, underscoring the sector's continued workforce expansion.
• Weekly job postings nearly doubled between January 2025 and May 2026, reflecting rapidly growing demand for engineers, technicians, skilled trades workers, and security-cleared personnel.
• 76% of companies in the sector say engineering jobs are both the most needed and the hardest to fill, and skilled manufacturing roles face similar challenges.
• About one-quarter of the industry's workforce is age 55 or older, indicating a significant potential labor gap over the coming decade.
• Many critical defense programs rely on just one or two qualified suppliers for key components, creating supply chain bottlenecks that limit the industry's ability to rapidly expand production.
• Supplier bottlenecks continue to constrain production in critical areas including propulsion systems, castings, forgings, precision-machined parts, microelectronics, energetics, and other specialized components.

Traditional Hubs Continue to Lead While New Markets Emerge

The nation's leading aerospace and defense markets continue to benefit from deeply integrated ecosystems that combine experienced workforces, supplier networks, research institutions, military installations, and strong ties to federal defense programs.

While the report finds legacy industry manufacturing centers remain dominant, increasing demand is creating opportunities for emerging markets with strong engineering talent, advanced manufacturing capabilities, and room to grow. These emerging markets are complementing, not replacing legacy hubs and future growth will be distributed across a broader set of locations.

Seven of the Top 10 metropolitan areas have long been recognized as aerospace and defense leaders, while several newer markets are rapidly gaining national prominence.

Top 10 Aerospace & Defense Metro Regions

1. Wichita, KS
2. Ogden, UT
3. Dayton, OH
4. Salt Lake City, UT
5. Huntsville, AL
6. Palm Bay-Melbourne-Titusville, FL
7. Grand Rapids, MI
8. Phoenix, AZ
9. Dallas-Fort Worth, TX
10. Indianapolis, IN

Notable Regional Trends

The report highlights several emerging geographic patterns shaping the industry's future:

• Utah emerged as one of the nation's fastest-rising manufacturing states, placing two metropolitan areas in the national top five.
• The Southeast and Southwest have become the nation's leading aerospace and defense growth corridor, with North Carolina, Florida, Alabama, Georgia and Texas attracting an outsized share of recent investment.
• North Carolina recorded the largest increase in industry manufacturing project activity between 2021 and 2025, reflecting the state's expanding engineering talent, supplier base, and manufacturing ecosystem.
• Approximately 84 metropolitan areas attracted aerospace and defense projects between 2021 and 2025, up from roughly 60 during the previous five-year period, demonstrating that growth is expanding beyond traditional industry centers.

Ranking Methodology

GLS evaluated metropolitan areas using more than 120 weighted criteria spanning workforce availability, engineering talent, advanced manufacturing capabilities, supplier ecosystem strength, defense assets, innovation capacity, infrastructure, business climate, operating costs, and long-term scalability. Unlike rankings based solely on current employment or project counts, the GLS methodology measures each market's long-term ability to support future aerospace and defense growth.

The full methodology is included in the report.

Download the Full Report

The complete 2026 GLS Best Places for Aerospace & Defense Insights Report, including metro-level rankings and regional analysis, is available at: www.globallocationstrategies.com/reports

About Global Location Strategies

Founded in 2008, Global Location Strategies is a leading location strategy, site selection, and incentive negotiation firm specializing in advanced manufacturing and industrial investment. Combining data-driven analytics with extensive on-the-ground evaluation, GLS helps companies make informed location decisions that support long-term growth and operational success. For more information, visit www.globallocationstrategies.com.

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SOURCE Global Location Strategies