Mapping the UK's space workforce: 2024 Space Census launched on 12 March 2024

Launched yesterday, the 2024 Space Census aims to provide new data on the UK space workforce and the challenges and opportunities facing the sector.

The national survey of space professionals is conducted by the Space Skills Alliance and collects information about who works in the sector, how they got here, and what their experiences have been.

The results will be used to inform national space policy and sector strategy, and to improve what it’s like to work in the sector, tackle discrimination, and make the sector more attractive to new recruits.

The Space Census first ran in 2020, and its findings have been quoted in Parliament by the Science Minister, in reports by the Science and Technology Commons Select Committee and the OECD, and by many individuals and space organisations in the UK and abroad.

Four reports provided the first comprehensive statistics on demographics, pay, the experiences of women, and how and why people join the sector. Key findings included:

- Foreign nationals make up just under a fifth of the space workforce
- Space pay is competitive with other engineering sectors but not with the tech sector
- 41% of women in the space sector have experienced discrimination
- Most people join the space sector at the start of their career, three quarters have joined by age 35

The 2024 Space Census is supported by more than 30 space organisations including the UK Space Agency, the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, and UKspace. It will build on the 2020 edition to give a more detailed picture of trends within the sector. New questions will collect information on professional development, career breaks, and retention. The first results for 2024 are expected to be released later in the year.

If you work in the UK space sector, take part in the 2024 Space Census at census.spaceskills.org. The Census closes Friday 3rd May 2024.

David Cockburn, FRIN

It is with much sadness that we report the death of David Cockburn on 7 January.

David was born in Glasgow and attended the local Academy, from which he obtained a RAF scholarship direct to Cranwell for pilot training, gaining a Private Pilot’s Licence while still 17 and even earlier flying solo in a glider, for which he became an instructor less than 3 years later.  Whilst holding before taking up his posting to fly Vulcan bombers, he co-piloted Varsity aircraft taking trainee navigators, and during his bomber tour became Chief Flying Instructor (CFI) at the local RAF Gliding and Soaring Association Club.  He went on to become a non-flying Operations Officer on a German-based squadron, but also CFI and Treasurer to the RAF Germany Gliding Association.

On returning to UK, he became both pilot and instructor on Canberra aircraft, training RAF and RN radar operators in electronic warfare. He also won the 1976 Inter-Service Gliding Competition. He then went on the fly Jet Provost aircraft at the Navigation School at RAF Finningley, teaching at both high- and low-level flight; he inevitably also became CFI and Commander of the local RAF gliding club.  This was followed by a return to Cranwell as a Pilot Navigation Instructor, responsible for improving both students’ and flying instructors’ navigation skills.

David’s most spectacular posting followed when he was posted to Berlin to fly a reconnaissance Chipmunk within a 20-mile radius of the RAF base in West Berlin; specified allied aircraft were permitted to do so.  He had to fly from the rear cockpit with an observer in front. He undertook a ‘Special Duties’ course in UK first and, as a very observant pilot, able to converse in French, German and Russian, living with his family in West Berlin and permitted to cross on foot to the East, he became a most valued member of the NATO ‘Brixmis’ Team in Berlin. His later posting back to UK was to teach elementary flying on Chipmunks again, this time at RAF Scampton, to which the Humber Gliding Club had moved and for which he inevitably became CFI. But his performance in Berlin led to him becoming an Arms Control Officer at the Arms Control Implementation Group, a multi-service unit also at Scampton; he had become acknowledged as an expert and became deeply involved in the arms-reduction process, becoming the author of the Arms Control Policy. David was still an Arms Control Officer when he retired from the RAF in 1994; his final working day in the RAF ended in the MOD hotel in Moscow, where the Russian escort officers hosted his ‘dining-out’.

British Aerospace was seeking flying instructors for a contract in Saudi Arabia, and David was interviewed for the position.  Sadly, age was against him as a flying instructor, but BAe wanted to fill a Teaching and Learning Specialist post with the Royal Saudi Air Force, and eventually David accepted their offer. Unfortunately the post lasted for only 3 months and he moved back to UK, where he taught commercial licence theory to students, gaining the licence and instructor rating himself and updating Blackwell’s standard book on Radio Aids for the licence. He also became CFI at Lincoln Aviation, Wickenby. He then returned to the Saudi Air Force for over 3 years as a ground instructor, also writing their training manuals and advising instructors whilst also beginning work on a series of training books for the UK Private Pilots Licence. Then, in 1999, he took up the post of Safety Promotion Officer for General Aviation with the CAA, publishing safety advice and giving presentations throughout the UK. For this he received awards from the UK Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, the Air League and the Guild of Air Pilots and Air Navigators, of which he became a Liveryman.  He was also an expert within the EU Aviation Safety Agency’s General Aviation Safety Agency, even after the UK withdrawal. He held this CAA post for 15 years, after which continued to fly and instruct as a Registered Training Facility and Declared Training Organisation for teaching applicants for Private Pilot Licences. He became CFI at the RAF Waddington Flying Club and laterly CFI of a flying school in Leeds, until his cancer and its treatment rendered that impossible.

David Joined the Institute in 1994 and was granted Fellowship in 2008, having served on Council and as Treasurer. He was a major contributor to the General Aviation Navigation Group as a qualified instructor and examiner, authoring published pamphlets, giving presentations and attending and running stands at shows; he did so until his cancer prevented him. He will be sorely missed by the Group participants as well as many other Institute members. We pass our condolences to David’s wife, Alison, son John and family.

David’s funeral will take place at 1300 on Monday 29 January in St Columba’s Parish Church, Topcliffe, N Yorkshire, followed by a gathering in remembrance at The Angel Inn, Topcliffe. Members are welcome to attend; please let David’s son, John < coburnj6515@gmail.com>, know if you wish to be present.

David Cockburn FRIN           29 April 1948 – 7 January 2024

Southern Ocean Sketchbook by Claudia Myatt
- an event report by John Hasselgren

This was the title of a fascinating talk at the Cruising Association in December, one of the joint hybrid events run with the Small Craft Group of RIN.

Claudia started by saying how pleasant it was to speak to a live audience as well as those online. By the time of her 60th birthday she decided it was time to undertake a new challenge. Having sailed all her life, mainly up and down coasts but never across an ocean, Claudia joined the Dutch vessel Tecla in the Galapagos to sail round Cape Horn to the Falklands. Tecla is a steel Dutch-built former herring fishing logger (drifter) of 1915, gaff-rigged on both masts, length 38 metres by 6.6 metres beam and displacing 92 tons. Despite bouts of seasickness, Claudia found the passage enjoyable and thought the wildness of the weather and the ocean very beautiful.

Claudia decided against relying on a camera to illustrate the event, saying it was too easy to produce a camera and take the same snaps as everyone else. Instead, she took a sketchbook, pencils and watercolour paints. Sketching views, she said, meant working slower and taking more care. This allowed her to illustrate the log book and sketchbooks, which she completed back ashore, finishing and having the book “Sketchbook Sailor” published in 2020 during the Covid lockdown.

From a friend, Claudia then heard the Scott Polar Institute appointed annually an artist in residence and that they were about to select the next one. Applying for the residency Claudia was appointed and subsequently spent five weeks aboard HMS Protector on a voyage around parts of Antarctica. 

HMS Protector is an icebreaking ship that conducts surveys, delivers loads to various scientific stations and even counts penguins. Showing an Antarctic chart of 1775 attributed to Capt. James Cook’s Sailing Master Joseph Gilbert, Claudia quoted him:
 
“I now reckoned we were in the Latitude 60 degrees south and farther I did not intend to go, unless I met with some certain signs of soon meetings with land. I was now tired of these high Southern Latitudes where nothing was to be found but ice and thick fogs.”

Before the trip, due to the Covid lockdown, everyone travelling to join the ship had to spend 8 days in quarantine at RAF Linton-on-Ouse in North Yorkshire. Claudia’s time there was spent on walks around the airfield and experimenting with the paints that were to be taken south and used there.

Joining HMS Protector in the Falklands, Claudia found it confusing as she couldn’t initially find her way round the ship and was unable to understand language such as “RASON” meaning Remain At Sea OverNight. The crew all seemed extremely young to her but she found them very tolerant of her presence. One person in particular with whom she made friends was the ship’s Chaplain, someone who had some spare time on his hands and who, usefully, was an expert on sea birds.

Regarding sketching and painting, Claudia started by drawing seabirds and discovered that albatrosses don’t flap their wings but just glide on the wind. Going on deck every day she painted seascapes. With the ship rolling and pitching whenever the weather was bad, she had to hold onto her sketchbook with one hand and paint with the other. At times it was an effort to prevent her materials from going overboard. The colours in the area are never the same two days running. One comment on sketching in the Antarctic came from her son, who suggested she leave a blank page in the sketchbook and title it “Iceberg in a Snowstorm”.

The ship’s passage was from the Falklands to South Georgia, to South Orkney Islands, the Antarctic Peninsula and the South Shetlands, then back to the Falklands. On trips ashore, Claudia sometimes used a camera to record wildlife to use as an ‘aide memoire’ for her sketches. Photographs, she said, are more accurate but a sketch increases the experience, colours can be intensified and can also include maps.

After three days at sea they arrived at Grytviken in South Georgia. This was once a whaling station and its ruins are still evident, all the steel parts covered in a thin coating of rust: it will never rust any further as the climate tends to preserve everything. Although its original purpose was to kill whales, it is now a leader in their conservation. The Governor of South Georgia told Claudia that if a seal comes towards you, you should hold up your hand and tell it to stop. Asked if it worked he said no! With more animals than humans, the King Penguins take no notice of people and just wander around at will. This visit to Grytviken coincided, within a couple of weeks, with the centenary of the death of Sir Earnest Shackleton, so the Captain held a Memorial Service at the graveside.

Next, the ship headed south for the Antarctic. This meant going below 6o˚ South into Antarctic waters, where the Antarctic Treaty comes into force stating that no one owns the continent and none may develop nor plunder it. First call was at the uninhabited South Sandwich Islands where there are areas that needed surveying to update the charts. This was accomplished by the hydrographer in shirtsleeves sitting at a computer while the measurements came in. So different from two centuries ago when using lead and line. A shore visit was laid on to Saunders Island to assess the size of the Chinstrap Penguin colony there. Here there are no alongside berths so this trip, as all in these waters, meant using the Zodiac RIBs, dressed up in survival suits, lifejackets and helmets. 

Next on the agenda were the South Orkney’s, which are about the same latitude south that the Orkney’s are north. Here some inshore surveying was required of the bay used as a base by the British Antarctic Survey team as this is gradually losing its covering of ice. Another job, which meant a shore trip, was to deliver a sack of Christmas goods for the scientists who would arrive before Christmas in the Sir David Attenborough. Signy Island was also visited, where a British Antarctic Survey Research Station is located. Although able to go ashore, Covid quarantine had to be observed to avoid infecting the scientists.

Moving on, Claudia reached the Antarctic continent in the shape of the Antarctic Peninsula. It was only in 1935, she informed us, that the British Grahamland Expedition established that Antarctica was a continent, not a series of islands joined by ice, by using a light aircraft to overfly the area. Today scientists use drones. After a slow approach due to ice HMS Protector berthed alongside the Rothera British Antarctic Survey Station late on Christmas Eve. Christmas Day was spent on board following the usual RN Christmas routine when officers serve dinner to the crew. On Boxing Day they were allowed ashore, but again had to follow quarantine regulations and were unable to mix with the scientists.

Following a visit to Deception Island, a volcanic caldera, where plans to go ashore were thwarted by an incoming storm, Claudia and HMS Protector headed back to the Falkland Islands. Here, Claudia, unlike most of the crew, returned home.

One thought from Claudia: unlike the crew in a sailing ship, who remain fit by working the sails, the crew of HMS Protector spend most of their working day watching computer screens. Off watch, they seem also to watch screens – films, social media etc. To overcome this there is a gym and a Basher (Clubswinger or Clubs in my day) running circuit training to keep them fit.

After a break for refreshments Claudia answered questions and showed examples of her work. Even if, like me who took up the camera due to an inability to draw, you feel unable to illustrate your log books with sketches – fear not! – Claudia can teach you how to do it. Her web site www.claudia-myatt.co.uk gives more information and shows more of her work.

At the end of the evening, Paul Bryans, Chairman of the SCG, thanked both Claudia for her presentation and the Cruising Association for their hospitality in hosting the meeting.

John Hasselgren.
12/12/2023.