Orbex To Hire 50 New Employees Ahead Of UK Launch

Orbex, a UK launch services business, is looking to hire 50 new staff members within the next six months. The new employees will support the team’s final push to prepare for the UK’s first vertical rocket launch. 

The company revealed on 24th August that most of the roles would support the integrated testing of the complete rocket at the Kinloss Orbex LP1 launch platform test facility.

The test facility provides the company with the ability to try out a full “dress rehearsal” of the rocket launch. This will take place in Kinloss, which is based only a few miles from the Orbex headquarters in Forres, Moray, Scotland.

Strengthening the existing Orbex team

The new roles will also improve the current teams responsible for chief areas of the rocket’s development, such as embedded software, CNC machining, avionics, structures, and propulsion. 

Additional recruitment areas will aid in communications between the rocket and ground staff during flight, covering fields such as radio engineering, ground segment software, data capture, sensors, and GNC (guidance, navigation and control) systems.

Roles in non-technical positions available

Out of the 50 new roles, 15 of these are going to be in non-technical position, providing a broad range of individuals with new opportunities to re-skill or train for a career within the European and UK space sector. 

The CEO of Orbex, Chris Larmour, has been speaking about the growth of the company in light of the launch:

“We have already tripled the size of our team over the last twelve months. And now, the roles we’re recruiting for are the clearest demonstration that we’re in the final countdown to launch from UK soil. There’s no better time to join Orbex – we have an extremely exciting few years ahead of us and we encourage people to find out more about the roles we have on offer.”

The Scottish Government Employment Minister, Richard Lochhead, is also delighted by the news:

“These jobs will bring us a step closer to achieving our ambition of 20,000 jobs in the Scottish space sector by 2030. Orbex is bringing high-value jobs to Moray while inspiring the study of science and engineering – which will help create future rocket scientists.”