Scotland’s growing space sector is projected to achieve revenue of £4bn within the next six years
To infinity and beyond! All things interstellar came into much closer view this week as the UK’s largest industry space event, Space-Comm Expo, landed in Glasgow.
With a focus on the commercial future of space, we were reminded that turnover in the UK sector reached more than £17 billion in 2022, the latest recorded year, equating to around 6 per cent of the global space market.
Within the UK context, Scotland’s space sector is projected to achieve revenue of £4bn within the next six years, more than doubling the current level of jobs, estimated to be in the region of 10,000 today.
Among our starring domestic players is Scottish rocket manufacturer Orbex, recently raising £16.7 million, including a large cheque from Scottish National Investment Bank, as the company, whose technology is powered by renewable biofuel, gears up for the launch of its satellite transportation vessel Prime. To date, Orbex has raised over £100m from domestic and international venture capitalists.
The UK’s only other rocket manufacturer, Skyrora, is also Scotland-headquartered, based in Glasgow with a manufacturing site in Cumbernauld. On a similar trajectory to Orbex, the company’s three-stage Skyrora XL rocket, powered by 3D printed engines, continues to prepare for its inaugural launch at the Sutherland Spaceport, located on a remote site at the A’Mhoine peninsula, west of Tongue on the north coast.
A relatively new entrant to the nation’s space conversation is the Scottish Space Network, which recently set out plans to secure more inward investment for the sector here.
Only a giant leap away from Space-Comm Expo, at Skypark in Glasgow’s Finnieston on Thursday evening, Scotland’s Smart Things Accelerator Centre (STAC) marked the opening of its ‘thebeyond’ campus, a facility comprising product development labs and co-working, that chief executive and co-founder Paul Wilson says is set to be Europe’s largest “smart things” hub.
As STAC approaches its third anniversary, with a blueprint based on his time in Ontario where a similar accelerator launched over 500 startups and created more than 5,000 jobs, former Blackberry executive Wilson has ambition built into his DNA.
Writing for this column recently, he puts it like this: “Scotland does not suffer from a lack of ambition. What we need is a robust system that continuously cultivates success, encouraging more Scots to realise their potential. At STAC we are dedicated to building this system and demonstrating that Scotland’s entrepreneurial spirit is alive and well.”
STAC has already helped to create and support more than 50 early stage ventures in Scotland, companies who have collectively raised over £15m, equating to hundreds of jobs.
In June, STAC announced a strategic partnership with Volvo Cars to provide an innovation pipeline for the carmaker that is a pioneer in the global electric vehicle market, and a reminder of sorts that until Elon Musk takes humankind to Mars the majority of technology innovation will take place on terra firma.
Nick Freer is the founding director of corporate PR agency the Freer Consultancy