The United Kingdom has a long-standing role in spaceflight. It was the third country to operate a satellite, with Ariel-1 launched in 1962, after the Soviet Union and the United States, and the sixth country to place a satellite in orbit using a domestically developed launch vehicle, when Prospero was launched by Black Arrow in 1971.
The Space Economy at a Glance 2026
The United Kingdom is also a founding member and major contributor to the European Space Agency (ESA), and hosts ESA’s European Centre for Space Applications and Telecommunications at Harwell, a hub for satellite communications, applications, climate-related space services and commercialisation.
In constant GBP and USD million (base year= 2015)
Note: Budget estimates include national activities and contributions to the European Space Agency, Eumetsat and the European Union (Copernicus, Galileo/EGNOS). The United Kingdom contributed to the EU Space Programme as an EU member until 2020. It rejoined the EU Copernicus programme in 2024.
Source: OECD analysis based on institutional sources.
The UK space sector has particular strengths in small satellites, satellite communications, spacecraft manufacturing, operations, space science and downstream services. In orbital terms, the United Kingdom ranked third globally for satellite ownership in June 2026, predominantly reflecting commercial operators, and also third for satellites launched since 2019.
In 2025, the UK civilian space budget amounted to USD 1 003.7 million (GBP 762.3 million), including contributions to national activities, ESA, Eumetsat and selected EU space programmes (Copernicus), as shown in Figure 5.31. Key priorities include “discovery” (mainly collaborative science and exploration missions), “innovation” (technology development, applications and ecosystem support) and “earth observation”. Several developments affected the budget over the 2015-25 period, including COVID-19 and the formal withdrawal from the European Union in 2020.
IP5 patent families, by priority date and applicant's location, using fractional counts
Note: IP5 patent families correspond to patent families filed in at least two offices worldwide, including at least one of the Five IP largest offices (IP5, i.e. the European Patent Office, EPO; the Japan Patent Office, JPO; the Korean Intellectual Property Office, KIPO; The China National Intellectual Property Administration, CNIPA; and the US Patent and Trademark Office, USPTO). Patents related to space-related technologies have been identified by the EPO using the EPO-PATSTAT 2025b data ((https://www.epo.org/patstat).
Source: OECD, STI Micro-data Lab: Intellectual Property Database, http://oe.cd/ipstats, June 2026.
According to the UK survey on the size and health of the space industry, the sector employed 55 550 full-time-equivalents in 2022 and generated an income of GBP 18.6 billion. Direct-to-home broadcasting services accounted for almost half of the income, but its share has been trending downwards since 2010.
The United Kingdom accounted for 4.9% of global space-related patents applications in the 2020-23 period almost a doubling since 2010-13 (Figure 5.32), mainly filed by commercial actors in the fields of space debris, life support and space-related quantum. The United Kingdom has a strong positive revealed technological advantage (RTA), meaning that its share in space-related patenting is higher than its share in overall patenting activities. UK relative specialisation in space technology patenting has considerably increased compared with 2010-13.
Note: Perimeter of documents based on filtered journal titles and All Science Journal Classification codes in the Scopus database.
Source: OECD calculations based on Scopus Custom Data, Elsevier, Version 1.2026, April 2026.
The United Kingdom is a top performer in terms of space-related scientific production [hereafter ‘space literature’] and excellence. Production has increased steadily since 2009 (measured in fractional counts) and is above the OECD average (Figure 5.33). The share of internationally co-authored papers has also increased steadily, approaching 70%. When looking at citations, a common proxy for scientific excellence, 16.3% of UK space literature was in the top-10 percentile for citations in 2024. This is well above the OECD average of 12%. The United Kingdom’s normalised citation score, comparing citation patterns within specific scientific fields, is above the world average in the All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) categories “earth and planetary sciences”, “physics and astronomy”, and “engineering”.
The United Kingdom committed 88.7 million of constant 2023 dollars to space-related official development assistance (ODA) over the 2010-23 period (Figure 5.34). The commitments were mainly allocated to environmental research (32.7%), research institutions (14.8%) and agricultural research (9.9%). The five-year International Partnership Programme, funded by the Global Challenges Research Fund and run by the UK Space Agency, was established in 2016 in to employ UK expertise in satellite technology and data services to help tackle development challenges.
In constant USD million (base year=2023)
Source: Calculations based on OECD (2025[1])), “Creditor Reporting System (CRS)", OECD.stat (database), https://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=CRS1.
References
[4] London Economics (2025), Size and health of the UK space industry 2024 (updated 20 August 2025), https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/size-and-health-of-the-uk-space-industry-2024/size-and-health-of-the-uk-space-industry-2024.
[3] McDowell, J. (2026), Jonathan’s Space Report, https://www.planet4589.org/index.html (accessed on 23 June 2026).
[2] OECD (2026), STI Micro-data Lab: Intellectual Property Database, http://oe.cd/ipstats (accessed on June 2026).
[1] OECD (2025), Creditor Reporting System (CRS), database, https://data-explorer.oecd.rg.