UK Space Jobs

Airbus Defence and Space · Portsmouth

Lead two R&D engineering teams (~30 people) covering Maritime terminals and Software Defined Radio, driving product development, refinement and sustainment for highly classified defence products. Manage resources, recruiting, finance controlling and competence/tooling, working with project teams to meet roadmaps, schedules and cost/risk estimates in an Agile, V-Model environment.

Airbus Defence and Space · Stevenage

Undergraduate placement within Airbus's Project Management Office, supporting Project Managers with business management tools, processes, templates and reporting. Involves project plans, risk and opportunity registers, change logs, milestone tracking and monthly stakeholder reporting, with exposure to MoD and ESA programmes. Hybrid working with flexible hours.

Surrey Satellite Technology · Guildford

Oversees the technical execution, cost, budget and delivery of mechanisms project solutions, ensuring adherence to risk profiles and design policies. Leads a team of electro-mechanical engineers, managing work packages, resource conflicts and capability development while collaborating with Mechanism Experts and Project Managers. Includes hands-on support for debugging mechanism hardware and some project and design work.

ClearSpace · London

Coordinate and execute Assembly, Integration, and Validation activities for current and upcoming space missions, authoring AIV plans, estimating resources, and overseeing daily test operations. Design and maintain test environments including hardware models, harnesses, and IT infrastructure, while driving process improvement and providing technical leadership to the AIV team.

Filtronic · Cambridge

Lead the design, simulation and development of RF and mmWave circuits, components and subsystems, including system analysis, performance optimisation and troubleshooting. Carry out measurements, characterisation and validation of prototypes and production hardware, and support the transition from concept through prototyping into volume manufacturing. Works closely with electronics, mechanical, software and systems engineers, and contributes technical input to RFQs, proposals and customer engagements.

University of East Anglia · Norwich · £20,409 pa

Develops heat-transfer science for passive phase-change thermal control of perovskite solar cells in space. Builds and validates transient models of PSC-PCM stacks, formulates high-conductivity PCM composites with industry partners, and applies machine-learning surrogate optimisation. Prototypes are tested in vacuum and climatic chambers under simulated solar load.

University Of Leicester · Leicester · £40,704 – £46,970 pa

Postdoctoral role analysing JWST, ground-based and Juno infrared and microwave observations of the four giant planets, inverting spectra with radiative transfer and retrieval tools such as NEMESIS to derive temperatures, winds, composition and clouds. Based in the Planetary Science Group under Professor Leigh Fletcher, funded by an ERC Advanced Grant preparing the team for ELT and JUICE data in the 2030s.

Morson Edge · Rowstock · £54 – £100 ph

Systems engineer role within a space propulsion centre of excellence, owning propulsion subsystem and equipment activities across Phase A-E for satellite programmes. Acts as primary technical lead for the subsystem in MAIT and architecture, managing work packages, requirements baselines, design reviews and non-conformances while interfacing with customers, PMO, AIT and suppliers. Involves analysis tooling in EcosimPro, MATLAB, Python and Excel, with occasional UK/Europe travel.

Candour Talent Ltd · Newport

Defines and implements manufacturing and assembly processes for aerospace electronics, preparing manufacturing instructions, managing ECNs and NPI introductions, and liaising with tooling suppliers. Drives continuous improvement using LEAN, 5S and PFMEA, monitors yields, performs root cause analysis and supports production, audits and preventative maintenance.

Expert Employment · Aylesbury · £65,000 – £70,000 pa

Lead technical delivery of satellite and terrestrial communication projects, designing end-to-end cellular and satellite systems and developing practical solutions for end users. The role combines hands-on system integration, hardware setup and coding with technical consultancy, working alongside businesses, universities and research partners on emerging 5G, 6G and IoT technologies.

Surrey Satellite Technology · Guildford

Design, implement and verify RF payload solutions for satellite missions, covering system-level performance analysis of communications, radar and SIGINT payloads. The role spans hardware specification for transmitters, receivers and antennas, signal processing, tool development, and payload verification through environmental test and in-orbit commissioning. It also includes work package management, budget and schedule planning, bid input and presenting technical progress to stakeholders.

Holt Executive · Oxfordshire · £65,000 – £98,000 pa

Leads a team of systems engineers while actively contributing to the design and development of complex spacecraft systems across the full lifecycle, from mission concept to integration and verification. Focuses on technical trade-offs, requirements management, and cross-disciplinary coordination within a high-tech space organisation. Offers leadership responsibility alongside hands-on engineering in a collaborative, international environment.

University of Exeter · Exeter · £21,805 pa

Develops a multi-mission InSAR framework combining Sentinel-1 C-band and NISAR L-band observations to measure three-dimensional ground deformation in Arctic permafrost. The work involves joint inversion methods, large Earth observation datasets, high-performance computing with COMET-LiCSAR and JASMIN, and collaboration with Montana State University.

Rolls Royce · Bristol

Apply safety and reliability engineering methods including hazard analysis, fault tree analysis, FMECA and quantitative risk assessment to defence programmes. Work alongside life cycle and design engineering specialists, using statistical methods to assess system reliability and influence design decisions. Requires knowledge of gas turbine engines and comfort with uncertainty analysis.

Rolls Royce · Derby

Design and deliver electrical infrastructure for aerospace engine and rig test facilities, from requirements capture and calculations through detailed design, manufacture oversight and acceptance testing. Work under the Technical Authority with product definition teams, chairing design reviews and ensuring legislative compliance across civil and defence test programmes.