Swindon-based UK Space Agency is launching a new business accelerator programme to showcase the opportunities in space.

The up to 10-week programme, delivered in partnership with business growth experts from the University of Strathclyde and Entrepreneurial Spark, offers free virtual sessions to help companies with their sights set on space to make progress.

The UK space industry now employs close to 42,000 people across the country and generates an income of nearly £15 billion every year – and the government, via the UK Space Agency, wants to accelerate that growth.

Catherine Mealing-Jones, director of growth at the UK Space Agency, said: “The space sector is ripe with opportunity, and as the UK recovers from the Covid pandemic this new support programme will bring in diverse ideas and talent to realise that growth opportunity.

“A practical approach to how to develop a business, combined with access to experts who can guide success are hallmarks of the programme.

“This is coupled with a holistic focus on supporting truly sustainable businesses to ensure that the space sector can provide new long-term secure employment right around the country.

“Key to this approach is bringing innovators together in existing and new clusters of space-related activity, thereby gathering critical mass which will also benefit adjacent parts of the economy.

“The relationship with universities is also key and provides a pathway for students into the sector and for vibrant knowledge exchange for business”.

The UK is already a world-leader in space science, producing small satellites and utilising space data.

“As part of the government’s strategy of achieving 10 per cent of the global space market share by 2030."

Small and medium-sized enterprises in this sector are growing by 30 per cent per annum and there is a real opportunity to get more businesses involved in exploring how space technology can enable their growth.

To find out more, entrepreneurs and company directors should visit entrepreneurial-spark.com/space-accelerator