NCC, formerly the National Composites Centre, is a Bristol-based not-for-profit innovation centre that helps UK industry develop and prove new materials, products and manufacturing processes.
NCC, which was the National Composites Centre until a rebrand announced in July 2025, is a Bristol-based innovation organisation. It helps companies take new technologies from early concept through to products that can be made at scale. Composites are strong, light materials made by combining fibres such as carbon with a resin, and they are used in aircraft, wind turbines and many other things. NCC's work has grown beyond composites into advanced materials, digital engineering and artificial intelligence, and it works with the aerospace, energy, defence and space industries.
NCC describes itself as a not-for-profit organisation and a world-leading innovation organisation that turns research into industrial impact. Its tagline states: "Our mission is to transform today's industries and create tomorrow's." It says it acts as an extension of its customers' own capabilities, helping them validate and reduce the risk of new products and processes at rate and scale. Chief Executive Richard Oldfield said the new name was "far more than a name change" and a reflection of NCC's expanded capabilities.
NCC is part of the University of Bristol and one of the seven centres of the High Value Manufacturing Catapult. It is headquartered in Bristol, and the Mayor of the West of England Combined Authority, Helen Godwin, has called it an anchor asset to the West of England. Its site pages refer to a Large Structures Innovation Centre, which it describes as the UK's first open-access facility for next-generation large structures at full industrial scale, and to a Greater South West robotics hub that it is to lead business support for. NCC says it supported more than 300 businesses a year, including 560 small and medium-sized companies in 2024.
Its news pages mention a "Celebrating 15 years of impact" story, and programmes such as Aero Innovation for next-generation wing manufacturing, a forum for UK defence research, and Space West Connects, a network for space and quantum innovators. NCC says it offers a collaborative and innovative working environment, which is its own claim. It also runs skills courses and an academic reach programme, and offers membership to companies.
Jobs at a centre like this are mainly in engineering and science: materials and process engineers, designers, digital and simulation specialists, technicians who run the machines, and project, business and communications teams. If you are curious about how aircraft wings or wind turbine blades are made and want to be near the testing, NCC is one of the best-known places in the UK for it. Its careers page and Gradcracker profile list current opportunities.
Website: www.nccuk.com
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