The sky's the limit

Even as some sections of the economy show signs of deep financial trouble, the UK aerospace sector is holding its own and, in some areas, still providing growth.

On the space side of the business, following a very busy period for recruitment in 2007 and early this year, during which between 600 and 700 roles were advertised and filled,

is looking for around 120 further engineers to fill vacancies across the company, based at two sites — Stevenage, Hertfordshire, and Portsmouth in Hampshire.

'We have a broad range of positions available across five major areas. These include mechanical, electrical, systems and software, manufacturing and commercial disciplines,' said recruitment manager Andrew Scott. 'A unique factor concerning the vacancies is that only four are the same, with the other 116 totally different. This means we are seeking a large range of diversity in applicants' personal qualities and experience.'

Despite the recession, Scott said that Astrium's order books were full owing to demand for satellite technology by projects including Galileo and Skynet. 'We are also seeing demand from the telecommunications and digital television sectors through projects such as Hotbird and Astra II,' he added. 'With the UK's switchover to digital television everything must be in place.'