Source · Select Committees · Science, Innovation and Technology Committee
Recommendation 30
30
Acknowledged
Paragraph: 145
Companies often find it difficult to recruit employees with considerable experience, but we think companies...
Recommendation
Companies often find it difficult to recruit employees with considerable experience, but we think companies are also hesitant to invest money and time into training staff. This is partly due to the short-term nature of grant funding, creating a need for companies to have immediate access to the correct expertise. Further, space organisations fear that they will lose early career workers through competition with similar sectors, such as the tech sector, which require similar skills but often offer higher salaries. Industry players should move away from requiring applicants to have years of experience and should instead strengthen their early career training programmes, including the use of apprenticeships so that not all applicants require a degree. The Government should make it easier for businesses to do this, by offering multi-year grants which allow companies to plan and offer employees longer contracts.
Government Response Summary
The UKSA has planned to expand several projects under the Inspiration programme to highlight space careers, challenge misconceptions, and improve diversity and equality of opportunity by increasing space outreach to young people around the UK.
Paragraph Reference:
145
Government Response
Acknowledged
HM Government
Acknowledged
UKSA has planned to expand several projects under the Inspiration programme that will use a wide range of UK space missions and activities to provide an inspirational context for teaching. It will highlight space careers and the value of space in people’s lives, challenge misconceptions, and work to improve diversity and equality of opportunity. These evidence-based projects will intervene across the three major touch points in young people’s lives: the classroom (ensuring links to the curriculum), the home and family (ensuring parents are engaged and supported), and their social lives (ensuring our interventions are relatable), to critically ensure multiple high-quality interventions across their formative years. This includes an uplift and rebranding of the “One Million Interactions” programme, which provides the framework and mechanism for space professionals to act as role models and perform space outreach to young people around the UK. The programme, which has run for three years, recently exceeded its targeted 1 million interactions per year by achieving over 1.5 million interactions in the last school year, performed by 1000 space ambassadors. The uplifted programme will be called “Space Inspirations” and will aim to recruit more of the 47,000 UK space professionals and exceed 1.5 million interactions per year. Conclusions and next steps for the National Space Strategy