Role: Mission Manager (please note - we are recruiting for multiple roles across our three missions. The advert has been opened without a closing date due to the number of positions available and we are already in the process of interviewing for some. The advert will close once all roles have been filled)

Reporting to: Mission Lead  

Direct reports: Not applicable 

Base: Harwell 

Would you like to be at the heart of developing innovative and transformative ideas? Are you interested in being part of a team that ensures space technology can address UK and global challenges? Do you want to be part of a Mission which will make a real difference? If so, you may be who we’re looking for!  

The Satellite Applications Catapult (Catapult) is at the forefront of the burgeoning UK Space Industry and focused on driving the sector’s commercial growth. Our work is organised around four missions – Connected Earth, Sustainable Earth, Autonomous Earth and Beyond Earth – that concentrate our activities on the areas where we can deliver greatest impact.  We help businesses realise their potential, those developing and providing space infrastructure, and those developing applications that rely on it.

The Catapult has a twin role, operating as a neutral convener bringing projects, programmes and commercial opportunities to companies in the space sector and bringing space companies and capabilities to the attention of funders and commercial partners. We also use our expertise to deliver key programmes where we see a clear role for us to play.  

Reporting into our Mission Leads, you will manage a portfolio of activities that collectively deliver on a key objective of the mission (an intervention). This is a highly networked role that requires an ability to work under pressure, to challenging deadlines in an organised and collaborative way.

Using your depth of knowledge and experience in a key mission area, you will bring impact and insight into the mission team that enables an intervention. You will lead on an intervention, supported by the mission lead, overseeing direction and impact, engaging relevant stakeholders and the wider ecosystem, supporting growth and pipeline development, translating ideas into delivery and ensuring continuous learning and improvement. You will demonstrate accountability, strong stakeholder management, strategic capability, programmatic approach, clear subject matter expertise, positive core values, professional behaviour and ability to bring people and ideas together through influence rather than direct management. 

As the Mission Manager, you will…. 

• Collaborate – You will demonstrate by example that the best solutions come from a diverse group of thinkers, within our organisation, and beyond it.   

• Coordinate – You will ensure that the SAC team is more than the sum of its parts. You will support and draw on every function of the Catapult, to achieve best possible impact. 

• Deliver – You will be a key part in the delivery of the Mission through a programme of activities focused around an intervention. You will lead the Intervention (including projects and services that comprise it), working closely with our project and service delivery team, ensuring realisation of outputs and outcomes towards the Catapult’s mission goals and objectives - ensuring that the SAC team is more than the sum of its parts. You will act as escalation point for projects and services in delivery under the Intervention. 

• Design and adapt – You will ensure that your work is always in support of the mission objectives and will be adaptable to change as required, even if it does not always match the original plan. You will be part of a close and supportive team where you will share your expertise to enable others and learn yourself as new situations arise. 

• Developing the mission team – you will be part of a close and supportive mission team, you will share your expertise to enable others, and learn yourself as new situations arise. You will work with functional leads, the line managers of your people, to ensure that they continue to learn and grow, supporting their development through your mission and providing insight into their performance.  

• Ensure compliance – You will work within the governance processes and respect our ways of working. With a continuous improvement lens, if those processes are not working as intended you will feedback and be involved in providing solutions that work for all. 

• Ensure financially sustainable impact  – You will ensure you have routes to fund your work and stay within their limits.  Budgeting for impact will have an equal weighting in your regular evaluation and you will ensure correct monitoring. You will seek to develop and refine our understanding of full project costs to ensure we can develop better margins on our work that allow us to explore new and exciting areas of innovation. 

• Fore sighting -  You will seek to understand the opportunities on the horizon and work with functional leads so that they can ensure that our experts continue to develop, and provide feedback to enable and problems to be resolved. 

• Scale – You will look for ways to grow the overall mission impact as well as your selected intervention, working closely with the business development team and technical experts to reveal the opportunities beyond the obvious 

• Report – You will provide reporting against the Grant Work Programme (GWP) and the wider Catapult annual workplan. 

We expect that you would have the following skills and experience… 

• Extensive experience of strategic planning and workstream delivery 

• Strong stakeholder management and demonstrable success of delivering through others 

• Commercial and analytical mindset, with the ability to support the development of key commercial opportunities that deliver on the Catapult’s purpose and your mission 

• A depth of knowledge in one or more key enabling areas for your mission  - autonomous, beyond, connected or sustainable earth 

• Experience in creating high performing, cross-departmental, multi-disciplinary teams without ‘authority’  but with involvement 

• Building effective partnerships, with the ability to engage and inspire, in your own style, both internal and external stakeholders 

• Experience or ability to push conventional boundaries to create greater impact 

• Expert influencer with ability to rapidly change and adapt as needed 

• Aspirational thinker but pragmatic when needed 

You know you have been successful when… 

You are part of a mission capturing the key growth opportunities and impacts from a space sector perspective, and your work, which is delivering and adapting as required, is highly aligned to the objectives of the organisation. 

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 anyone 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. However, if you believe you can deliver in this role then we want to hear from you.

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.