UK space industry sees skyrocketing growth

The UK space industry has defied gravity during the recession to grow by 10 per cent a year since 2007, according to a new report.

The increase in jobs has been even more spectacular, at 15 per cent a year. The report by Oxford Economics is based on a survey of 260 companies commissioned by the UK Space Agency.

The best-performing sectors have been satellite broadcasting, telecoms and satellite navigation. But genuine space work, such as satellite manufacturing, has also seen healthy growth of 3 per cent a year. Richard Peckham, chair of UK Space, said: "We had anecdotal evidence that we were doing well through the recession but now we have the hard numbers and it is very positive."

The report says the UK space business is now worth about £7.5bn a year and it predicts that growth is set to continue. UK Space recently set out its vision for the next 20 years and is promoting a privately financed Earth-observation service to acquire imagery for the Ministry of Defence and other government departments. Government and industry spending could help create 100,000 new jobs and increase revenues to £40bn a year, it said.