Earlier quoted context omitted.
Engine manufacturing is much more profitable, and seemingly challenging than airframe manufacturing. The engines they'll use are unlikely to be very different from those in other applications, so I'm not sure there's room for a new entrant. Keep in mind that the R&D and capital costs of becoming a turbine engine manufacturer are immense, and likely much higher than the costs to develop a new aircraft.
Rolls Royce, and most other engine makers on this level, are essentially metallurgical gods.
They rely on metallurgists, but they may not employ them directly. I know somebody who consulted on that sort of thing, and worked on developing alloys that would work at high temperatures and thus allow greater turbine efficiency, but the engine manufacturers mostly just knew the properties they needed, not how to get them.