The UK government body responsible for civil space policy and programmes, based at the Harwell Campus in Oxfordshire and now part of the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology.
The UK Space Agency leads the UK's civil space programme. It sets space policy, manages key space budgets and represents the UK in space negotiations. It supports UK companies and researchers, works with the European Space Agency, and has backed projects such as new spaceports at Unst in Shetland, Sutherland in northern Scotland and Cornwall. It helped to create the Satellite Applications Catapult, and it leads or supports Earth observation missions such as TRUTHS, a climate satellite that will act as a reference for other satellites.
The agency was established on 1 April 2010 as an executive agency, replacing the British National Space Centre, with the aim of bringing together all UK civil space activity under one single management. Its first chief executive was David Williams. Over its first twenty years it aimed to help grow the UK space industry to a very large size, with many new jobs. Dr Paul Bate led it for several years, and Wikipedia reports that Rebecca Evernden became Director in April 2026.
There was an important change in 2025. On 20 August 2025 the government announced that the agency would stop being an independent executive agency and become part of the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT), with the merger due in April 2026. Wikipedia says it keeps its name and brand. Anyone reading about the agency should check the government website for the most recent position, because the details of how it is organised may have changed since these pages were written.
Its headquarters were historically in Swindon, Wiltshire. In March 2024 it announced a move to the Harwell Campus in Oxfordshire, the largest UK space cluster with more than a hundred space organisations, alongside regional offices in Edinburgh, Cardiff and Leicester. The agency says the aim was to be better connected to the sector it supports. It works closely with neighbours at Harwell such as the European Space Agency's UK centre, RAL Space and the Satellite Applications Catapult.
The jobs in a government space body are mostly policy, programme and project roles: people who manage space programmes and grants, scientists and engineers who assess technical proposals, regulators who license launches and satellites, analysts, communications staff and international relations specialists. A good understanding of science or engineering is helpful, but so are skills in writing, analysis and managing projects. Check the government jobs pages, and DSIT, for current vacancies, as recruitment is now likely to be through the department.
Website: www.gov.uk/government/organisations/uk-space-agency
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