Senior Business Strategy Consultant 

The Challenge: 

Would you like to be at the heart of developing innovative and transformative ideas? Are you interested in being part of a team that identifies how space technology can address UK and global societal challenges? Do you want to drive the growth of the UK space sector by catalysing adoption of space products and services across different sectors? Do you want to be a Senior Business Strategy Consultant who makes a real difference? If so, you may be who we’re looking for! 

We are currently seeking a Senior Business Strategy Consultant to work in our Business Growth Team.  This is a senior role, crucial to the continuous development of the Catapult and wider UK space industry.  The team is responsible for driving commercial development within the UK space sector including supporting client businesses with international expansion and investment opportunities. Working in close partnership with our technical teams, you will drive proposition development, opportunity generation, and the successful delivery of client strategic consulting engagements.

Working collaboratively, you will develop opportunities for the Catapult’s consulting services in both space and non-space companies, deliver business and commercial advice to clients, conduct in-depth market research and business analyses and create strategic recommendations. Your work will support accelerated integration of space-based products and services across different sectors, engage and connect ecosystem stakeholders, and support client businesses to commercialise and grow. 

Reporting into a Lead Consultant, this is a highly networked role that requires an ability to work under pressure and to challenging deadlines. It requires the ability to design and deliver strategic consulting services internally and externally, and to manage cross-functional delivery teams. The role will provide advisory services internally to the Catapult leadership team as well as to other departments. Externally, engagements with clients will be with large corporates and fast-growing SMEs and will be at C-level. 

Experience of broader UK space or geospatial sectors and their supply chain as well as an understanding of end user ecosystems is highly desirable, but not essential. Our principal offices in Harwell Oxfordshire, but the role may require travel to other offices and stakeholder sites in the UK. 

Key Responsibilities: 

• Manage entire workstreams within larger consulting projects, with minimal supervision 

• Ensure high-quality, error-free analysis and derive unique insights to support client commercialisation/adoption activities. 

• Act as an expert, coordinating hybrid teams and collaborating with external partners. 

• Analyse market trends and gather intelligence to inform client decisions, identify opportunities and help create organisational strategies. 

• Manage relationships with senior/executive-level client stakeholders and participate in client meetings. 

• Support alignment of activity with organisational strategies and Mission objectives.

• Apply and maintain knowledge management practices to support communication of market intelligence.

• Support business development by assisting with bid preparation and prospect qualification. 

• Engage internally and externally with relevant stakeholders to communicate Catapult purpose and strategy. 

• Contribute to the development and refinement of Catapult products/services based on customer insights.

• Provide mentoring and guidance to junior team members.

 Skills & Experience required: 

• Degree preferably in a business, science or engineering discipline or equivalent experience. Post degree work in a consulting role, MBA or comparable experience essential. 

• Ability to take complete responsibility for full projects/engagements, including all scoping, execution and delivery.

• Ability to identify, mobilise and lead cross-functional resources needed to deliver high impact results for clients.

• Strong Business & Commercial acumen with the ability to develop value creation strategies within your workstream, ensuring it’s alignment with wider engagement objectives.

• Ability to Act as a commercial expert, providing deep customer insight to shape commercialisation support activities. 

• Ability to work well with mid-level/ senior clients, build relationships beyond current engagements, and effectively communicate complex strategic concepts to diverse audiences.

• Ability to monitor the external environment to gather intelligence on emerging space technologies and market trends. 

• Experience of supporting Innovation in highly-technical/STEM environments, and the ability to quickly absorb and communicate complex techologies and their associated use cases.

• Excellent written English with very good presentation and communication skills 

Desirable Experience: 

• Experience in supporting rapidly-scaling (Series B and beyond) client businesses in achieving their investment/fund raising and export goals.

• Commercial due-diligence and financial modelling experience

• Identifying and qualifying new prospects with a view to developing a pipeline of potential opportunities. 

• An interest in technology and horizon scanning especially how innovation impacts society and business.  

You know you have been successful when… 

• Clients’ expectations are exceeded, driving repeat business. 

• The Catapult wins high value commercial contracts providing business services. 

• Clients are providing referrals . 

The purpose of your new team: 

• Deliver industry leading consulting services to accelerate the growth of high-potential UK Space business. 

 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.