Enterprise Space Category

The Enterprise Space Category (ESC) is a cross-government procurement category that aims to share intelligence, insights and challenges, and to identify opportunities for working together across the space value chain.

The ESC brings together partners across government, including the Cabinet Office (Crown Commercial Service), the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT), and the UK Space Agency (UKSA), to create a unified, cross government approach to space-related procurement and market engagement.

Creating a collaborative strategy

The ESC is a major step to build a single Space Enterprise Category Strategy. This strategy will focus on strategic alignment and engaging the market as one Government, helping to drive innovation and implement best practice in procurement.

To support the collaborative model, a monthly Space Category Steering Group provides strategic governance, oversight of ESC outputs, and a forum for sharing insight, innovation, and best practice across the enterprise.

The ESC launched in February 2024, growing out of the Ministry of Defence’s enterprise approach to category management and the work of the Defence Space Category Team in embedding best practice approaches, delivering targeted savings, and strengthening relationships across the defence space supply chain. It is being developed under the stewardship of Victoria Cope (2* Defence Digital Commercial Director).

Enterprise Space Category (ESC) tree

The ESC tree splits the space category into four level 2 categories, and then further splits these into level 3 categories.

See here for the full list of categories within the ESC tree: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/enterprise-space-category

Industry engagement: get involved

In 2025, the ESC released a Request for Information (RFI) to industry to gain initial thoughts on the ESCcategory tree and for industry to map where they sit within the category tree. Provide your input through the questionnaire.

As well as attending events and conferences, the ESChas held 5 Round Table events covering a range of topics, including social value, standardised terms and conditions, and managing supply chain risk.

Further ESC Round Tables will be held on a rolling quarterly basis across a variety of themes and topics. We would like perspectives from across the Space sector: primes, SMEs, new entrants and niche specialists.