Space Skills Alliance

I co-founded Space Skills Alliance with my friend Joseph Dudley. SSA exists to tackle the UK space skills shortage by collecting and publishing data, promoting best practice, and bringing key stakeholders together to collaborate and learn from each other.

My journey started in 2014 as a student leading UKSEDS, the national student space society, organising major events, competitions, and outreach activities.

In 2015 we launched SpaceCareers.uk, a careers website for young people, which has become the go-to resource for the sector. It was recognised by Prime Minister Theresa May as “a crucial service to thousands of people across the country that want to learn more about careers in the space industry.”

In 2019, we formally launched the Space Skills Alliance to address systemic skills challenges across the sector.

Key milestones:

• 2020 – Published reports on skills demand, job advert quality, and skills taxonomies; produced a toolkit for better recruitment; conducted the first national census of the UK space sector.
• 2021 – Released the first comprehensive demographic statistics, the first pay data for the UK space sector, and a report on women in the sector; launched our library of space skills literature.
• 2022 – Created the Space Training Catalogue, a free directory of hundreds of training opportunities, and SpaceCRAFT, a space competencies framework.
• 2023 – Published the Space Sector Skills Survey and a report on routes into the UK space sector; began work on the EU Horizon ASTRAIOS project.
• 2024 – Launched the second national census of the UK space sector, the 2024 Space Census.
• 2025 – Published the Space Skills Roadmap 2030 and the updated SpaceCRAFT competencies framework.

Panels and collaborations

I’m currently involved in:

• Member of the Cornwall Space Cluster Steering Group
• Member of the UKspace Policy Advisory Group (PAG)
• Judge of the UK CanSat competition

Previously, I’ve contributed to:

• Member of Space Skills Advisory Panel (SSAP)
• Member of the Association for Geographic Information (AGI) Education & Skills Working Group
• Member of the UK Telecoms Innovation Network Talent (UKTIN) Advisory Group
• Co-lead of the South West Aerospace Network (SWAN)
• Volunteer for Women In Aerospace - Europe (WIA-E)
• Committee member of the Space Universities Network (SUN)
• Member of the Data Intensive Science Network (DISCnet) CDT steering group
• Represented Space Skills Alliance in the House of Lords
• Represented both the Royal Astronomical Society and The Open University in the Voice of the Future events in the House of Commons
• Contributing Member to the Future Space Technologies Astronomy Impact Working Group (FST WG) at the IAU Centre for the Protection of Dark and Quiet Sky (CPS) Policy Hub