Demographics of
the UK space sector 2024

Summary

• These are the second comprehensive demographic statistics for the UK space sector. They are drawn from the findings of the 2024 Space Census.
• There have been no significant changes in the sector’s demographics since the 2020 Space Census.
• The proportion of women, LGBTQ+ people, disabled people, and ethnic minorities working in the space sector has increased, primarily driven by young people. Most of these changes align with wider STEM workforce and population trends.
• There is still under-representation of some demographics, in particular women, people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, and Black people.
• We surveyed 1,025 people from more than 258 organisations across industry, academia, government, the military, and the non-profit sector. This is approximately 2.6% of the UK space workforce.
• Gender: Women are under-represented (35%), particularly in industry (30%). This is an improvement since 2020, but reflects wider trends among STEM students and graduates.
• Gender: Trans people make up about 1% of the sector, on par with estimates for the wider population.
• Sexuality: LGBQ+ people appear to be well represented (13% vs 5% of the population at large). About two thirds say they are comfortable being open about their sexuality. Younger people are more likely to identify as LGBQ+ (32% of 18–24s vs 3% of 50–54s).
• Ethnicity: Ethnic minorities are under-represented (13% vs 18% of the population at large). Around half of Black and Asian people in the space sector are non-British nationals.
• Nationality: Foreign nationals make up a sixth of the workforce (16%) and most of these are European.
• Disability: Disabled people are under-represented (14% vs 18% in the working age population). Since 2020, the biggest increases in reported health conditions relate to social or behavioural (+19 percentage points) and mental health (+10 pp).
• Parenting and caring: 27% of space professionals currently have parenting responsibilities and 9% are carers.
• Socio-economic background: People from more advantaged socio-economic backgrounds are over-represented, with the proportion of privately educated people just under twice the national average (13% in space vs 8% of 14 year-olds in England).
• Religion: Space is significantly less religious than the country (31% vs 63% in the population at large).
• Age: The UK space workforce is a relatively young workforce, with just over a third of the workforce (37%) being under 35.

Introduction

This report presents an overview of the demographic results of the 2024 Space Census, the second national survey of the UK space workforce. This will be the first in a series of reports drawing on the survey results.

The purpose of the Space Census is to collect data to inform decisions at all levels, from national and international policymaking to hiring practices in individual companies. The findings of the 2020 Space Census have been quoted in Parliament, in reports by the Science and Technology Commons Select Committee and the OECD, and by many individuals and space organisations in the UK and abroad.

The Space Census is a survey of individuals, unlike the Space Sector Skills Survey and Size and Health of the UK Space Industry survey, both of which are surveys of companies. The Space Census provides complementary data which validates some of the findings of those surveys as well as providing new and more detailed information in other areas.

By comparing the 2024 data to that from 2020, we are able to start examining possible trends, but two data points are not enough to draw many meaningful conclusions. We hope to continue running the Space Census at four-year intervals to build up the dataset further.

The 2024 Space Census was conducted by Space Skills Alliance.

Methodology

The 2024 Space Census was conducted via an online form open for about 12 weeks from 12th March to 21st May 2024. It comprised 92 questions covering demographic information (age, gender, ethnicity, etc.), work information (role, company, salary, etc.) experiences of discrimination, and paths into the sector (qualifications, influences, etc.). The exact questions shown to each respondent depended on their answers to earlier questions. The median number of questions respondents answered was 55.

We surveyed 1,025 people from more than 250 organisations across industry, academia, government, the military, and the non-profit sector. This is approximately 2.5% of the UK space workforce. More details on our methodology can be found in Appendix A and the characteristics of the dataset can be found in Appendix C.

Results

Gender

The UK space sector is 64% male, 35% female, and 1% non-binary or other. This is an increase in the number of women by 6 percentage points from 2020. The percentage of people choosing a non-binary or self-descriptive gender has not changed since 2020. This headline figure should be viewed with caution as the gender breakdown is quite different for different types of organisation (see below).

Women are more likely than men to be non-British nationals. They make up 34% of British nationals, 46% of EU nationals, and 45% of those from the rest of the world. This is similar to the result in 2020.

The space sector has a gender balance between that of the science & maths and technology workforces, and better than that of the engineering workforce. ref

Trans identity

Just over 1% of respondents said that their gender identity was different from their sex, a similar result to 2020. Of those who identified as trans, 69% identified as having a gender other than male or female.

This result is slightly higher than the ONS estimate from the 2021 Census of England and Wales of 0.5% of people, but the ONS has cautioned that there is a high level of uncertainty in their estimate ref.

The number of respondents is extremely small (13 people) and comparable to the number of people who declined to answer this question (12), so this data should be treated with caution.

7 people said that they were open with everyone about their gender transition, 3 said they were open only with close colleagues, and 3 said that they were not open.

Gender by organisation type

The gender breakdown varies between different types of organisation, with government, academia, and non-profits employing a higher number of women. The number of respondents from the military was too small to be analysable.

Since 2020 the proportion of women has increased in industry (+8 percentage points), academia (+4pp), and government (+6pp). The proportion of women in non-profits has fallen by 7pp.

Size & Health 2023 (which only surveys industry) estimated that 23% of the space workforce is female, and less than 1% is non-binary, virtually unchanged since 2021 ref. The 2024 Space Census finds a slightly greater proportion of women in industry (30%).

Gender by age

While men outnumber women across almost every age bracket, the younger age brackets are getting closer to gender parity. 40% of under 35s are women, compared to 33% of over 35s.

In 2020 we noted that the 35–39 group has a significantly larger proportion of women compared to either 30–34 year-olds or 40–44 year-olds, and suggested that this might be related to women leaving the workforce to care for children in their early 30s and then later returning. We see no evidence of this effect in the 2024 data.

52% of respondents in the 45-49 age band were women. We don’t know why. This anomalous result appears to be driven by respondents from academia and government, but there are no other obvious similarities between respondents, and no similar results in datasets for academia or government. When we look only at data for industry, this anomaly disappears.

Sexuality

The UK space workforce is 87% straight, 7% bisexual, 3% gay, and 3% another sexuality. Self-described sexualities (counted within ‘Other’) included asexual, pansexual, and queer. Men are much more likely to be straight (91%) than women (81%).

The proportion of LGBQ+ people (note that we discuss trans people in the gender section) has increased by 2 percentage points from 10% in 2020. This is driven almost entirely by the increase in the proportion of bisexual people from 4.8% to 7.1%.

LGBQ+ people are well represented in the space sector, with about 13% of all respondents identifying as LGBQ+ compared to about 5% of the UK population ref.

Sexuality by organisation type

Government, academia, and non-profits have a higher proportion (~17%) of LGBQ+ people compared to industry (10%). This trend is the same as we saw in 2020.

Sexuality by age

As in 2020, young people are much less likely to be straight, with 32% of people aged 18-24 identifying as LGBQ+. The increase in people identifying as LGBQ+ in the space sector is driven largely by young women identifying as bisexual (26% of women under 35 vs 9% of men under 35). Over 35s are more likely to be straight (95%) than under 35s (76%). These results are not unique to the space sector, and align with wider societal trends ref.

Openness about sexuality

People are generally comfortable being open about their sexuality in the workplace, with 70% of LGBQ+ people saying they are open with their manager and/or colleagues.

People who are gay are as likely to be open about their sexuality in the workplace as those who are straight (94% vs 93%), while those who are bisexual are less likely to be open (73%). Bisexuality is closely correlated with age (see above), but younger people are more likely to be open about their sexuality.

Ethnicity

The UK space workforce is mostly White (87%) and slightly less ethnically diverse than England and Wales as a whole (82%) ref. 8% of respondents were Asian (vs 9% of the population), 3% Mixed (vs 3%), 1% Black (vs 4%), and 1% other (vs 2%). These results are broadly similar to the 2020 Space Census.

The proportion of minority ethnic respondents has increased by 2 percentage points from 2020, primarily driven by a 2 percentage point increase in Asian people, also seen across the rest of the country ref.

Much of this diversity is a result of the inclusion of foreign nationals in the Space Census. Around half of Black and Asian people in the space sector are non-British nationals. White people are predominantly British (87%).

The space sector has a similar ethnic composition to the science & maths workforce.

Ethnicity by age

On average, the younger age groups have greater ethnic diversity, largely driven by a higher proportion of Asian people, particularly Indians. This matches the 2021 Census of England and Wales ref.

Care should be taken when drawing conclusions from this data as the population sizes become very small when divided by both age and ethnicity.

Using university course diversity data, we can estimate how many people of ethnic minority backgrounds we might reasonably expect to find in the 18–24 cohort (see Appendix A). We get a result of 3.7–5.4% Black, 9.7–14.2% Asian, and 4.8–7.0% of another minority ethnic background ref, which suggests that there is good representation of Asian, Mixed, and other minority ethnic background graduates, but poor representation of Black graduates.

Nationality

Foreign nationals without British citizenship make up 16% of the UK space workforce. Including those who also have British citizenship increases this number to 21%.

In 2020 respondents could list only one nationality, but in 2024 they were able to list multiple nationalities, and 6% of respondents did so. In 2024, 84% of respondents were British, 12% were European nationals, and 9% had another nationality.

Looking only at first-listed nationalities for comparison with 2020, 84% of respondents were British (vs 81% in 2020), 10% were European (vs 13%), and 6% were from the rest of the world (vs 6%).

Among Europeans who did not also have British nationality, 74% had lived in the UK for at least 5 years (the minimum required to apply for permanent residency) compared to 45% of those from the rest of the world.

This is similar to the findings of Size & Health 2023 which found that the workforce was 82% British, 13% EU nationals, and 5% had another nationality ref. Space has a similar proportion of foreign nationals to the wider workforce, but they are more likely to be from the EU.

Disability

14% of people in the UK space workforce reported having some kind of disability, an increase of about 6 percentage points since 2020. Disability is defined as long-term physical or mental health conditions or illnesses that limit day-to-day activities.

89% of disabled people in the sector describe their disability as low level, and 11% as significant. Women are more likely to have a disability than men (20% vs 10%). There is little variation by age or organisation type.

The Space Census website was designed to be as accessible as possible for those using assistive devices such as screen readers, so we are confident that there were not barriers to disabled people being able to access it.

The proportion of people with a disability in the space workforce is slightly lower than the working-age population (18%) ref.

Specific disabilities

Statistics for specific types of disabilities are difficult to compare as the categories are rarely consistent between surveys.

Among those who said their day-to-day activities are limited because of any long-term physical or mental health conditions or illnesses, 47% reported a physical condition, 65% reported a mental condition, and 23% reported both. Mental health is the largest single condition (48%), followed by social or behavioural conditions (including ADHD and autism) (30%). Respondents could tick multiple boxes, so the values below will sum to more than 100%.

To compare 2020 to 2024, we reclassified respondents who chose ‘other’ in 2020 using the same categorisations as 2024. The figures for 2020 in this report are therefore slightly different to previously published figures.

Since 2020, the biggest increases in reported health conditions relate to social or behavioural (+19 percentage points) and mental health (+10 pp).

Compared to the working age population, the space sector has a lower proportion of people with physical conditions (such as mobility, stamina, and dexterity), but a greater proportion of people with social or behavioural conditions (30% vs 12%) ref.

86% of disabled people are comfortable being open about their disability. Overall, this is unchanged from 2020, however more people are now likely to only be open with their close colleagues and/or manager compared to open with everyone.

Parenting & caring responsibilities

About a third (35%) of space professionals currently have some kind of caring or parenting responsibilities. 27% of space professionals currently have parenting responsibilities and 9% are carers. While there has been no meaningful change since 2020, the number of carers has increased from 4% to 7%.

We collected more detailed data in this edition of the Space Census and will be publishing a separate report on this topic in the future.

Socio-economic background

Socio-economic background is very difficult to assess effectively. It is typically measured using proxies such as childhood postcode, parental education, and type of secondary school. In 2020, we asked only about schooling; in 2024 we also asked whether respondents received free school meals and the occupation of the main earner in the household at age 14. Together, these can give a more effective picture of the socio-economic background of the sector ref.

In this report we are providing a brief update on our 2020 data, and will provide results from the new questions in a future report.

Since 2020, there have been few significant changes. The proportion of people educated at an independent school (private) has decreased by 2 percentage points, at a state selective school (grammar or religious) has increased by 4 percentage points, and at a state non-selective (comprehensive) has decreased by 1 percentage point.

As with 2020, women are more likely to have been privately educated (20%) than men (11%).

The proportion of people privately educated at 14 in the space workforce is greater than the national average (13% in space vs 8% of 14 year-olds in England) ref. This is essentially unchanged from 2020.

The Space Census schooling figures are necessarily historic, so comparing them to current-day ones must be done with caution, as the proportion of different types of school has changed significantly over the past 50 years ref.

Religion

The UK space workforce is significantly less religious than the country (31% are religious vs 63% in the population of England and Wales at large ref). There has been little change since 2020.

Young people are the least likely to be religious (21% of under 35s compared to 36% of over 35s), in line with country-wide trends ref.

Christians and Muslims are significantly under-represented compared to the general population, while ‘no religion’ and ‘other’ are overrepresented.

Of those who are religious, 60% are open about their beliefs in their workplace, and 24% are open only with their close colleagues or manager. The proportion of people who are open with everyone has dropped 16 percentage points since 2020.

Age

The UK space workforce is a relatively young workforce, with just over a third of the workforce (37%) being under 35.

The UK space sector appears to have a slightly younger workforce than other similar sectors, as evidenced by both the Space Census and Size & Health 2023 ref. Space Census respondents are more likely to be in the 25-34 age bracket and less likely to be in the 50-64 age bracket. This may be representative of a sampling bias.

The mean age of the workforce is 41 years old (43 for men, 39 for women). This is similar to the average age of the European upstream space workforce of 44 years old ref.

Future work

This report is the first in a series that will examine the findings of the 2024 Space Census in detail. Further reports will examine specific topics in more detail. If there are particular topics you would like us to cover or prioritise, funding our work is a great way to incentivise us!

If you’d like to be informed when these are published, then subscribe to our newsletter or follow us on social media. If you have specific questions you would like us to explore in these reports, please get in touch with us at census@spaceskills.org, and we will do our best to include them.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank everyone who responded to the Space Census, and those people and organisations who helped promote it, particularly the UK Space Agency, Department for Science, Innovation & Technology, UKspace, techUK, Institute of Physics, Institution of Engineering and Technology, Royal Aeronautical Society, Royal Astronomical Society, Satellite Applications Catapult, UK Space Command, Space Park Leicester, Cornwall Space Cluster, Harwell Space Cluster, Space Hub Yorkshire, Space Wales, Midlands Space Cluster, Midlands Aerospace Alliance, Space East, Space North East England, Space Scotland, Northern Ireland Space Office, Space South Central, Space Partnership, Global Satellite Operators Association, Royal Institute of Navigation, UK Telecoms Innovation Network, Space Universities Network, Space Academic Network, Space & Satellite Professionals International UK, Astroverse, Women In Aerospace - Europe UK, Space Generation Advisory Council, Magnetosphere, Ionosphere and Solar-Terrestrial Group, SpaceCareers.uk, British Interplanetary Society, and Space4Climate.

Licence

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. You can copy, redistribute, and adapt what we’ve presented for any non-commercial purpose. However, you must give us credit and link back to this page. If you want to use it in a commercial context, get in touch with us at info@spaceskills.org.

Appendix A: Methodology

The 2024 Space Census was conducted via an online form open for about 12 weeks from 12th March to 21st May 2024.

Survey design

The survey consisted of 92 questions addressing various topics, including demographic details (such as age, gender, ethnicity), employment information (such as job role, company, salary), experiences of discrimination, and pathways into the space sector (such as qualifications and influencing factors). The demographic questions were designed to cover 8 of the 9 characteristics protected under the UK Equalities Act 2010, with the exception of marital status.

Audience & sample size

The target audience for the survey was individuals working in any capacity within the UK space sector. This encompassed professionals in industry, academia (including PhD students, but excluding undergraduates), the military, government, and the non-profit sector, whether in space-specific roles (e.g., satellite engineers) or non-space-specific positions (e.g., marketing). Our target sample size was 1,000 respondents, which we estimated would provide a reasonable level of accuracy for analysing smaller populations, such as ethnic minority groups.

We surveyed 1,025 individuals across industry, academia, government, the military, and the non-profit sector. The total UK space workforce is estimated to be around 52,000, though this figure includes approximately 21,000 people working in direct-to-home (DTH) broadcasting, which is generally considered separate from the broader space sector. Excluding DTH broadcasting, the space workforce is estimated at around 31,000, with around an additional 7,000 individuals working in academia (a rough estimate based on RAS ref] and HESA [ref data, and lower than our estimate in 2020). Therefore, we estimate the population we are sampling to be approximately 38,000 people, making our sample roughly 2.6% of this total.

Individuals were from 258 different organisations broken down into industry (160 organisations), academia (46), government (21), military (4), and non-profits (27). Size & Health 2023 estimates that there are 1,765 organisations in the UK space industry ref. Accounting only for industry and non-profits, we received responses from approximately 11% of the sector.

While the overall sample size is sufficient to provide a high degree of confidence in the accuracy of the results, sample sizes for specific intersections of characteristics (such as ethnicity and subject of study) are much smaller. In such cases, it is challenging to draw definitive conclusions from the data, though it does provide useful insights into trends and highlights areas for further investigation.

Despite efforts to ensure broad representation across the sector, some bias is likely present in the dataset. These potential biases have been discussed and estimated below.

Question design

The questions were designed to help identify areas for improvement within the UK space sector, building on those used in the 2020 Space Census. New questions covered topics such as professional development, parental career breaks, and plans to leave the sector.

A complete list of the questions is provided in Appendix B.

Participation in the survey was voluntary, and all questions were optional. While most questions were closed-ended, respondents also had the option to provide additional comments in open-text fields. Sensitive questions, particularly those addressing topics such as gender identity, ethnicity, and disability, were carefully worded in line with best practices recommended by organisations such as Stonewall, the Office for National Statistics, and the Government Statistical Service.

The Space Census was presented as a single-page online form, developed according to Government Digital Service guidelines, with an emphasis on accessibility and compatibility across various web browsers.

Promotion

The 2024 Space Census was shared widely within the UK space sector by government, regional space clusters, trade bodies, learned societies, and companies. The survey was shared by direct email with space organisations, in email newsletters and social media posts sent out by a number of partner organisations, and at several in-person and online space events.

Non-response rate

The rate of non-response was very low, with less than 1% for the vast majority of questions. The exceptions were for more sensitive or identifiable responses such as organisation name (29%), salary (5%), and home location (4%).

In most cases, non-responses have been excluded, and the remaining responses were normalised to 100%. An exception was made when the non-response rate was similar in size to a valid response category, such as for questions related to trans identity.

The exact questions shown to each respondent depended on the answers they had previously given. The median number of questions respondents answered was 55.

Processing and analysis

Light processing was done to ensure responses were suitable for analysis. Details of this processing and error analysis are provided below. Invalid responses were removed, and responses where the respondent had selected ‘other’ were reclassified if their written response clearly fit into one of the provided options.

We also compare the Space Census results to those from the engineering, technology, and science & maths workforces, and the wider UK population, primarily using data from the Office for National Statistics. These comparison datasets are referenced throughout the report. For the purposes of comparisons, all results have been normalised to 100% to exclude non-responses.

Removal of invalid responses

Of the 1,031 responses received, 6 spam responses were removed, leaving 1,025 responses for analysis.

Reclassification of responses

Organisation name, type, and size

Respondents were asked what organisation they worked for, as well as the organisation type and size. Respondents could choose one of: company, university, government (non-defence), government (defence), and non-profit, or provide a free-form answer for organisation type. Organisation size could be selected from a series of suggested options. Government (defence) is referred to in this report as military to distinguish it from the defence sector.

71% of respondents provided the name of their organisation. We reclassified and recategorised some responses to align different spellings.

Respondents who provided a free-form answer for organisation type were reclassified into an existing category. We standardised the spelling of organisation names. We also cross-referenced respondents from the same organisation to verify that their organisation type and size categorisation was consistent (e.g., ensuring all respondents from a university were classified as ‘academia’). We introduced an additional category, ‘education’ to account for further education (FE) and outreach organisations that did not fit neatly into the existing categories.

Demographics

Many questions could be answered with a free-form answer. We reviewed and recategorised ‘other’ responses across religion, sexuality, disability, nationality, and schooling to correct for spelling errors and, where appropriate, to align with standardised categories.

Location

Respondents were asked where they lived, at a county level if living in the UK and a country level if they were living overseas. This field was a free-form box with a list of UK counties available in a dropdown. Most responses used one of the provided options. Where they did not, we reclassified first by country, and then by NUTS 1 region and county for UK responses. A handful of responses were very vague and were classified as ‘world’.

UK regional bias

In the 2020 Space Census, we suggested that the data over-represented people in the South East and under-represented those in Scotland and London. This was based on workforce data from the Size & Health reports which does not provide a breakdown of the DTH and non-DTH workforce by region, and overestimates the space workforce in Scotland and London. For more information, see our article ref.

The updated workforce data shows that we have a much smaller regional bias. The East of England and London are slightly under-represented, and the South East and South West are slightly overrepresented.

Despite the smaller regional bias, the reasons for this bias are likely to be similar to 2020. The East of England has a very new space cluster, and London has no space cluster, while the South East and South West have very active space clusters. Much of the promotion of the Space Census was done via the clusters, which may have contributed to this.

Company size bias in the sample

Compared to the Space Capabilities Catalogue ref, the Space Census appears to over-represent large and medium sized companies and under-represent small ones.

Segment bias in the sample

Respondents categorised their role using the standard space industry segmentation used by the Size & Health report ref. However, it is not possible to do a direct comparison between the two because our survey allows respondents to select multiple segments, while Size & Health requires that each employee is assigned to only one segment (based on the categorisation of their employer).

We roughly estimate that the Space Census slightly over-represents space manufacturing, space operations, the in-space economy and ancillary services, but under-represents space applications. This may be because downstream employees feel less connected to the space sector than other sectors like tech, and are therefore less likely to self-identify as the target audience of the Space Census.

Calculation of errors

We calculated errors bars using the standard error \(e\) for a finite population

where

• \(z\) is the z-score, taken to be 1.96 for 95% confidence
• \(p\) is the observed value
• \(n\) is the sample size, taken to be 1025
• \(N\) is the total population, taken to be 38,000 (see above)

Estimating the diversity of other STEM sectors

To compare the space sector to other STEM sectors, we use data from the ONS Labour Force Survey. The LFS provides the occupation (SOC code) of each respondent along with various personal characteristics like sex, age, ethnicity, and disability status.

We use the STEM sector definitions created by the Gatsby Charitable Foundation ref, which maps SOC codes to STEM sectors, and we weight each occupation by the number of people working in that occupation according to Gatsby estimates.

Estimating diversity from university admissions data

Because a substantial majority (93%) of people within the space sector have at least a first degree, its diversity is to some extent a reflection of the diversity of university graduates.

To estimate the impact that this might have, we can use diversity figures for physics, chemistry, geophysics, science, physical sciences, geography and environmental sciences, engineering, aerospace engineering, electronics engineering, and computer science ref, and then weight those groups by how common their subject is within the space sector.

This gives us the formula:

where

• \(s_d\) is the proportion of the space sector with a degree, which is 89%
• \(s_t\) is the proportion of the space sector studying the subject
• \(t_c\) is the proportion of the subject's students with the characteristic (ie. gender, ethnicity, etc.)

For example, for Black students, this is:

This gives us a lower bound of 3.7%, having accounted for about 73% (93% x (31% + 6% + 33% + 3%)) of the people who enter the space sector. We can obtain an upper bound of 5.4% by assuming that the same proportions are true for all 100%.

Appendix B: Question set

The entire question set, exactly as presented to respondents can be found here.

Appendix C: Characteristics of the dataset

This appendix gives a breakdown of the characteristics of the Space Census responses used in this analysis.

Breakdown by organisation

71% of respondents provided the name of their organisations. In total 258 organisations were named. A list of all of the organisations and the number of respondents from each one can be downloaded here.

Breakdown by type of organisation

Breakdown by size of organisation

Breakdown by location

Breakdown by role segment

Breakdown by seniority

Breakdown by role area

Respondents not in academia

Respondents in academia