Senior Partnerships and Policy Manager (PPM)

Role: Senior Partnerships and Policy Manager (PPM)  Reporting to: Head of Partnerships, Policy and Place  Base: Harwell (with UK travel)  Contract: Permanent / Full Time  Department: External Affairs 

Please note, we may look to interview before the advert close date due to the urgency of the role. The advert will close if a suitable candidate is found before the deadline.

About the Satellite Applications Catapult 

As one of Innovate UK’s network of nine Catapults, the work we do at the Satellite Applications Catapult (SAC) aligns with UK government priorities for economic growth. We support our best companies to accelerate the invention and adoption of space data and technology. We work closely with businesses to reduce and remove the technical, business development, commercial, financial, or regulatory challenges and barriers that can block their growth. 

Our three missions, Resilient Earth, Autonomous and Connected Earth, and Beyond Earth, are high-impact areas where the UK has world-class expertise and align with the government’s priority space capability areas. 

Role Purpose:  

Senior Partnerships and Policy Managers (SPPMs) work as part of the Partnerships, Policy and Place (P3) team within the External Affairs department and collaboratively across the organisation to support mission and corporate objectives including defence and security activities. 

SPPMs support SAC to build strategic partnerships with senior national and local stakeholders including businesses, researchers and universities, government, and end-users in the space and non-space sector including in the defence and security domain. The purpose of stakeholder engagement is to unblock barriers to space business growth and find new opportunities advocate for and inform effective policy development; and drive local engagement, especially with the UK’s network of space clusters, local authorities and devolved governments.  

Working closely with the Head of Partnerships, Policy and Place to provide specialist expertise in stakeholder engagement and ecosystems, policy analysis, regulatory mechanisms and operating environment knowledge; and place-based growth opportunities, to enable delivery of corporate outcomes and support growth across the UK space sector.  

The SSPM will support the Head of Partnerships, Policy and Place to lead the P3 deputising from time to time. 

Key Responsibilities 

• Senior Subject Matter Expertise: Use your expertise in stakeholder engagement and public affairs; policy analysis and regulatory mechanisms; and place-based growth, to provide advice, intelligence and recommendations to shape and deliver corporate stakeholder engagement and policy activities via advocacy campaigns including to the defence and security account: 

• Ecosystem Policy Specialist: Maintain a solid understanding of the stakeholders, capabilities, policies and regulatory developments related to the relevant mission and associated parts of the UK space ecosystem. Use this intelligence to support SAC corporate objectives including the defence and security account and missions to identify barriers and opportunities that enable growth. This includes undertaking relevant research which balances depth of knowledge and speed to produce briefings and other outputs to inform strategic decision-making, designing and delivering policy and regulatory advocacy campaigns relevant to SAC’s high potential businesses (HPBs) and senior stakeholders. This will include topics such as emissions policy and the role for satellite data in monitoring and reporting, supply chain resilience in critical minerals, spectrum policy, drone operations regulations particularly beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS), licencing and insurance of space operations and wider, general space policy, and new business-boosting regulations such as multi-mission licencing, return-to-Earth, and rendezvous proximity operations. 

• Stakeholder Engagement: Develop intelligence, drive engagement and foster excellent relationships with senior stakeholders in national and local government, regulatory and standards agencies, industry and trade bodies, academia, and clusters across the ecosystem to support SAC to understand and tackle challenges and identify opportunities for space business growth. This will include stakeholder mapping and profiling and active use of CRM and related business systems to capture knowledge and intelligence to support organisational decision-making and enable joined-up delivery particularly with the Defence and Security, and Strategic Communications teams. 

• Advocacy: Develop and deliver advocacy campaigns to shape policy and strategy in support of businesses in the sector and beyond, particularly to help missions to work with external senior stakeholders to lower barriers to business growth across the UK, for example implementation of the Defence Investment Plan opening defence contracts for space HPBs, UK policy on autonomous drone testing and use of earth observation data in nature financial disclosures policy. This will include convening senior stakeholders with purpose such as targeted 121 meeting programmes, roundtables and events, being an active participant of appropriate external advocacy fora, and coordinating responses to consultations with the Strategic Communications team. 

• Partnership Development: Provide ecosystem intelligence and connect stakeholders to forge opportunities and develop partnerships for collaborative research and development or commercial space enabled projects including working with SAC’s Business Development team on proposals. 

• Teamwork and leadership: Work in a multidisciplinary team and collaborate with cross-functional matrix teams to take ownership, lead and coordinate activities and projects. Step up to deputise for the Head of P3 to lead the team when appropriate and within the bounds of the Delegation of Authority. Support departmental planning and organisational development activities. 

• Performance Tracking: Report progress against goals, milestones, key performance indicators and metrics to maintain momentum and ensure accountability. Evaluate campaigns effectiveness and apply lessons learnt for continual improvement. 

• Continual improvement: Proactively identify opportunities to improve ways of working, processes and tools, contributing to a culture of continuous improvement that enhances efficiency, quality and stakeholder experience. 

Essential Experience & Knowledge 

• An excellent understanding of the relationship between government policy and regulation, innovation and economic growth in the UK space ecosystem including satellite communications (satcoms), earth observation, position, navigation and timing (PNT) and assured access to space/launch domains. Other relevant adjacent industries can be considered: defence, nuclear, aerospace, etc. 

• Solid experience in building and managing relationships, working with, and influencing a variety of key industrial, academic and government organisations and stakeholders including local authorities, devolved governments, universities, research institutions, industry bodies, clusters, innovation agencies and technical experts and senior officials. 

• Solid experience of monitoring the relevant policy/ecosystem landscape and able to undertake qualitative and quantitative research and analysis of capabilities intelligence, policy and regulation to provide coherent summaries, recommendations or briefings to shape and deliver advocacy and public affairs campaigns. 

• Solid experience in the identification, development and delivery of collaborations and projects with internal and external stakeholders to meet organisational objectives. 

Competencies and Skills 

• Communication: Excellent interpersonal and communication skills, comfortable developing content, representing organisational messaging to external parties and chairing multistakeholder meetings keeping them on track to meet pre-determined objectives. 

• Problem Solving: Analytical mindset, able to synthesise ecosystem intelligence, policy insights and stakeholder to identify root cause of problems, anticipate risks and input into clear recommendations and actions to help shape and deliver solutions. 

• Collaboration: Embeds collaboration into strategic planning and decision-making processes. Cultivates networks within the space sector and related disciplines. Builds relationships with individuals and organisations and navigates complex collaborations for partnerships, revenue generating collaborative and commercial opportunities. Understands and addresses political, cultural, and organisational barriers. Creates environments where experimentation, knowledge-sharing and innovation can flourish across organisational boundaries 

• Strategic Thinking: Creates plans for the future by thinking holistically about the operating environment and works across the business to integrate multiple perspectives and stakeholder inputs to create a comprehensive view of the ecosystem to shape strategic decision making and delivery aligned with organisational priorities.  

• Execution: Expertise in developing comprehensives plans includes resources, stakeholders, success metrics and timeframes. Anticipates risks, obstacles and critical path with contingency plans built into stakeholder and advocacy campaigns to pivot plans when needed. Consistently delivers results that contribute to the SAC's strategic goals and objectives.  

• Excellent planning, coordination and organisation skills including the ability to scope, support, coordinate and deliver activities in collaboration with internal and external partners. Skilled at tracking and reporting particularly via Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems. 

• Personal Effectiveness: A high level of individual drive and can-do attitude to deliver against goals whilst modelling proactive adaptability to shifts in SAC priorities and goals. Demonstrates confidence in own abilities and decisions. Tests new approaches and takes calculated risks to improve outcomes when appropriate. Directs self and sets personal and professional goals. The ability to scope, support, coordinate and deliver action plans and activities in collaboration with internal and external partners and monitors progress towards delivering plans and activities.  

• Leading People: Connects and aligns campaign plans and goals to SAC strategy and models accountability. Works in matrix managed teams to clearly define expectations, allocate tasks and responsibilities based on capabilities and strengths for relevant stakeholders and advocacy campaigns they lead. Shows concern for wellbeing of team members and tailors specific and timely input to individual needs, particularly when deputising for Head of P3. 

 About us & how we work: 

We strive to create a high trust, high performance and inclusive environment that enables team members to bring their whole selves to work.  This helps to create the foundations of an innovation culture. Our shared values are critical to this: 

• We care - for our people, our partners, and our planet

• We connect - and engage with people and ideas

• We learn - and grow, as people and as an industry

Underpinning this is our belief in great teams.  Our combined efforts will always deliver outcomes beyond that of any individual, providing we are honest through debate, experiment and reflect, and create shared resolutions in support of our purpose. Live these values, work to our principles, take ownership to deliver, and we are certain you will thrive with us. 

This job description set outs the skills and experience we think are needed to be able to perform in this job.  If you believe you can deliver in this role then we want to hear from you.

We offer a hybrid policy which is designed around collaboration, one 'anchor' day per week working with your direct team and another flexible day per week to be spent collaborating or working with other colleagues.

Important notice for applicants: We use tools to detect plagiarism and the use of AI or chatbots for applicant answers. If plagiarism, AI use (such as ChatGPT) or similar software are found to have been used in your application you will not be considered for this or future roles within the Satellite Applications Catapult.

At Satellite Applications Catapult, we're committed to fostering an inclusive and diverse workforce. We welcome candidates from all corners of the globe, but due to legal and logistical considerations, we want to be transparent about the potential visa-related challenges that could arise. Our ability to offer sponsorship will depend on the level of interest for our roles and salary level.

If you need any additional support during the application process, please do reach out and connect. We also invite you to share feedback via Applied.