The timing of his appointment was fortunate according to some industry veterans. Rolls-Royce's biggest business – supplying engines to commercial airlines – has rebounded strongly from the Covid pandemic. The company's most successful product – the Trent series of aircraft engines – are at the sweet spot of profitability as the returns on investment in their development over a decade ago begin to pour into company coffers. Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 arguably made it almost inevitable that its defence business would see higher spending from European governments – which has been confirmed by recent announcements.

One exception to that is investment in artificial intelligence. Deloitte found that an overwhelming majority of CFOs expect to see significant growth in spending on AI over the next five years but were divided on whether that would lead to an increase or decrease in the number of employees.