Business Development Director

About the role

ClearSpace is recruiting a Business Development Director to lead pipeline development across the Group, covering institutional, defence, and commercial opportunities. The role involves developing relationships, managing bids, and coordinating with national leadership to secure new work.

Key responsibilities

• Identify and track bid opportunities from ESA, EU, UKSA, defence agencies and commercial satellite operators, and assess fit with future projects.
• Maintain a database of prospective projects, support prioritisation of R&D, and align with service and capability strategy.
• Manage end‑to‑end bid production, coordinating engineering, procurement, finance and business analysis teams, and conduct bid/no‑bid and gold/red‑team reviews.
• Control bid finances, work with finance and partner organisations on multi‑partner consortium bids.
• Support business development events, customer engagements and policy‑style activities, especially around In‑Orbit Servicing (IOS) and Active Debris Removal (ADR).

Required profile

• Significant experience in bid management within the space industry, covering institutional, defence or commercial programmes.
• Excellent understanding of institutional, defence and commercial space ecosystems and related stakeholder negotiations.
• Strong commercial awareness with proven risk and opportunity management capabilities.
• Self‑motivated, proactive and able to take initiative.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills for both technical and non‑technical audiences.

Required skills

• Technical knowledge of spacecraft systems (upstream and space segment).
• Familiarity with EU funding instruments such as the EIC Accelerator or Horizon Europe.