The submarine enterprise is projected to create around 20,000 direct jobs over 30 years, the majority of them engineering and skilled-trade roles. Yet defence is recruiting from the same pool as mining, resources, tech, offshore, etc, sectors which often are higher-paying and less restrictive. How does the enterprise win that competition and then once through the door how does defence retain them? This panel examines what makes a defence workplace genuinely attractive, confronting the real barriers to entry, clearances, pay and the demands of the work and presses for practical outcomes of how best to get talent through the defence door and keep it there.