Updates from our team

Stay up to date with our work

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What’s new about skills in Size & Health 2023?

by Joseph Dudley and Heidi Thiemann

The 2022 Size & Health report finds significant (but suspicious) employment growth and includes new data on workforce demographics.


Development of the Space Training Catalogue and SpaceCRAFT competencies framework

by Joseph Dudley and Heidi Thiemann

We’ve been funded by the UK Space Agency to further develop our Space Training Catalogue and SpaceCRAFT Competencies Framework between now and March 2025.


How will the new visa salary threshold affect space?

by Joseph Dudley and Heidi Thiemann

The Government recently announced that the base salary threshold for Skilled Worker visas will rise in Spring 2024 to £38,700, and this could impact 5% of the UK space workforce.


What’s new about skills in Size & Health 2022?

by Joseph Dudley and Heidi Thiemann

The 2022 Size & Health report finds that employment growth is slowing, gender diversity remains the same, and recruitment and skills are ever more acute barriers to growth


We’ve been named SSPI UK Space Personalities of the Year

by Joseph Dudley and Heidi Thiemann

We’re delighted to announce that we have have been jointly named UK Space Personality of the Year by the UK Chapter of the Space and Satellite Professionals International (SSPI) in recognition of "excellent work on space sector skills, employment, and diversity with the Space Skills Alliance".


Women in space deserve better

by Joseph Dudley

We have published a new and even gloomier report today. There are somewhere in the region of 10,000 women working in the UK space sector today, and more than 4000 of them have experienced discrimination, most of it because of their gender.


It's pay day for the UK space sector

by Joseph Dudley

Salary data is vital to ensuring that the space sector stays competitive and is not constrained by a lack of access to talent. We’re very pleased to today be sharing the first ever report on pay in the UK space sector.


The first demographics of the UK space sector

by Joseph Dudley

More than 1500 completed in the Census, almost 5% of the space workforce. They covered every region, role, and subsector, from Goonhilly to Glasgow, industry to academia, finance to flight dynamics.


What you need to know about the Space Sector Skills Survey report

by Joseph Dudley

The results of the UK Space Agency’s Space Sector Skills Survey have been published today, and besides being a contender for the most alliterative publication of the year, this hotly-awaited report finally provides some figures for the space sector’s recruitment and training needs.


Launching the 2020 Space Census

by Joseph Dudley

Today I am delighted to say that we are launching the 2020 Space Census, which will, for the first time, establish the demographic make-up of UK space sector employees across industry, universities and government organisations.


Just 8% of space job adverts are any good

by Joseph Dudley

The average space job advert is pretty bad. Rated against 10 best practice criteria, it gets a score of just 54 out of 100. Only 8% of ads get a score of 75 or more.


Half of early career space jobs require programming skills

by Joseph Dudley

When we talk about skills for the space sector, we tend to think immediately of space-specific skills: knowledge of orbital mechanics, of spacecraft design, of satellite data analysis. But though these are certainly important and necessary skills, the technical skill that is asked for most of all is the ability to design, develop, and deploy software.


Heidi wins award

by Joseph Dudley

We’re delighted that our co-founder and director, Heidi Thiemann, has won a Sir Arthur Clarke Award for her services to the UK’s space sector.


We have liftoff!

by Joseph Dudley

We’re excited to be launching the Space Skills Alliance today at the UK Space Conference. It’s an initiative Heidi and I have increasingly seen the need for, and we’re delighted to share it with the world today.


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