Key findings

1
SpaceX alone had 27.7% of the 8,150 space roles open on 29 Oct 2026 (2,258), ahead of Blue Origin (1,444) and Rocket Lab (487).
Figure 1
2
The five largest employers held 59.2% of the open roles and 3 employers held half of them; the Herfindahl-Hirschman index stood at 1,213.
Figure 3
3
The kinds of work with the most open roles were Manufacturing & Technicians (1,439), Programs & Business (1,155) and Ground Software & IT (895).
Figure 2
4
30.3% of the open roles with a posting date were posted in the last 30 days, and 12.2% more than 180 days ago.
Figure 4

Figure 1

Open roles at each space employer

Which space companies are hiring the most right now?

Employer	Open roles	Share of all open roles	Posted in the last 7 days	Posted in the last 30 days	Kinds of work	Median posted pay a year
SpaceX	2,258	27.7%	122	396	14	$138,000
Blue Origin	1,444	17.7%	0	0	14	n/a
Rocket Lab	487	6.0%	72	195	13	$100,000
Relativity Space	384	4.7%	31	153	13	$116,000
AST SpaceMobile	253	3.1%	28	71	12	$59,800
K2 Space	213	2.6%	9	22	14	$158,000
True Anomaly	200	2.5%	8	62	14	$140,000
Astranis	184	2.3%	2	29	13	$100,000
ICEYE	174	2.1%	14	56	13	n/a
Vast	174	2.1%	6	31	12	$112,000
Voyager Technologies	164	2.0%	22	65	12	$130,000
Boeing	139	1.7%	0	0	14	n/a
Muon Space	138	1.7%	4	46	12	$201,000
Isar Aerospace	131	1.6%	20	59	11	n/a
Vantor	131	1.6%	16	59	8	$135,000
Apex	126	1.5%	23	71	14	$155,000
Firefly Aerospace	121	1.5%	20	121	11	n/a
Axiom Space	120	1.5%	11	62	12	n/a
NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory	120	1.5%	14	71	13	$124,000
Varda Space Industries	119	1.5%	26	77	13	$160,000
Ursa Major	117	1.4%	8	37	11	$118,000
The Exploration Company	113	1.4%	19	39	12	n/a
Planet	100	1.2%	10	32	11	$136,000
Inversion Space	83	1.0%	0	15	13	$165,000
Northrop Grumman	83	1.0%	0	0	14	n/a
Stoke Space	74	0.9%	3	17	12	$152,000
Loft Orbital	61	0.7%	6	17	10	$165,000
Northwood Space	60	0.7%	4	19	10	$144,000
Xona Space Systems	51	0.6%	12	22	11	$161,000
Astroscale	43	0.5%	1	5	11	n/a
BlackSky	37	0.5%	2	22	9	$150,000
Spire Global	32	0.4%	2	7	7	$130,000
Terran Orbital	29	0.4%	2	10	10	$111,000
Dawn Aerospace	24	0.3%	1	12	9	n/a
Kepler Communications	22	0.3%	2	9	7	n/a
HawkEye 360	20	0.2%	5	8	8	$130,000
Quindar	17	0.2%	5	9	3	$160,000
Hubble Network	16	0.2%	1	5	5	$197,000
Loft Federal	14	0.2%	0	1	6	$128,000
Outpost	14	0.2%	1	5	6	$198,000
Turion Space	13	0.2%	6	13	9	$175,000
Starfish Space	12	0.1%	9	9	8	$140,000
Slingshot Aerospace	11	0.1%	0	0	6	$154,000
Momentus	9	0.1%	0	1	5	$180,000
RTX	7	0.1%	0	0	3	n/a
Albedo	5	0.1%	1	4	4	$173,000
Epsilon3	3	0.0%	0	0	2	$160,000

Sample. 8,150 roles open on 29 Oct 2026 at the 47 space employers this site reads.

Posted is the date the employer's own board gives the role; a board that gives none counts in the open roles but not in the posted columns.

Source. SpaceJobs.Now Research, Who Is Hiring in Space: Open Roles by Employer and Kind of Work, read 29 Oct 2026.

Figure 2

Open space roles by kind of work

Which kinds of work is the space industry hiring for?

Kind of work	Open roles	Share of all open roles	Employers hiring	Posted in the last 30 days	Median posted pay a year
Manufacturing & Technicians	1,439	17.7%	37	327	$85,000
Programs & Business	1,155	14.2%	47	385	$140,000
Ground Software & IT	895	11.0%	45	201	$160,000
Mechanical, Structures & Thermal	793	9.7%	37	154	$132,000
Supply Chain & Facilities	781	9.6%	39	222	$110,000
Systems, Integration & Test	779	9.6%	44	169	$133,000
Avionics & Electrical	571	7.0%	39	113	$150,000
Quality & Mission Assurance	471	5.8%	30	111	$113,000
Flight Software & GNC	378	4.6%	34	66	$160,000
RF, Communications & Payloads	256	3.1%	28	46	$162,000
Propulsion & Engines	230	2.8%	22	58	$132,000
Launch & Mission Operations	221	2.7%	34	64	$130,000
Science, Imaging & Earth Data	119	1.5%	23	41	$153,000

Sample. 8,150 roles open on 29 Oct 2026.

Source. SpaceJobs.Now Research, Who Is Hiring in Space: Open Roles by Employer and Kind of Work, read 29 Oct 2026.

Figure 3

How concentrated space hiring is

Does one company dominate space industry hiring?

Measure	Value
Share of open roles at the largest employer (SpaceX)	27.7%
Share of open roles at the five largest employers	59.2%
Employers holding half of the open roles	3
Herfindahl-Hirschman index (0 to 10,000)	1,213

Sample. Shares of the 8,150 roles open on 29 Oct 2026 at 47 employers.

The Herfindahl-Hirschman index is the sum of each employer's squared share in percent: 10,000 is one employer with every role; US antitrust practice reads above 1,800 as highly concentrated.

Source. SpaceJobs.Now Research, Who Is Hiring in Space: Open Roles by Employer and Kind of Work, read 29 Oct 2026.

Figure 4

How long ago the open space roles were posted

Are the open space jobs new, or have they been open for months?

Posted	Open roles	Share of open roles with a posting date
Within the last 7 days	548	8.5%
8 to 30 days ago	1,416	21.9%
31 to 90 days ago	2,293	35.4%
91 to 180 days ago	1,427	22.0%
More than 180 days ago	793	12.2%

Sample. 6,477 of the 8,150 roles open on 29 Oct 2026 carry a posting date from their employer's board.

An employer that reposts a role gives it a new date, so a role open for a long time can read as recent; the age is the board's, not this site's reading.

Source. SpaceJobs.Now Research, Who Is Hiring in Space: Open Roles by Employer and Kind of Work, read 29 Oct 2026.

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Method and definitions

Every open role on the space employers' public job boards this site reads, with the posting date each board gives. Every figure is computed by one database query over the window shown, the same query for the live report and for every edition. Each figure states its sample beneath it.

Open role: A role listed on its employer's public board on the day, read by this site; a role posted several times counts each time the board lists it.
Posted: The date the employer's board gives the role; a board that gives none leaves its roles out of the posted columns.
Herfindahl-Hirschman index: The sum of each employer's squared share of open roles, in percent: 10,000 is one employer with every role.

What this data cannot tell you

Coverage is the employers this site reads: a company whose board is not read is missing, and the shares are of the covered market.
Open roles count postings, not hires; an employer may post one role for several hires or several roles for one.
A reposted role gets a new date, so posting age can understate how long a role has been open.

How the job feeds are read and roles are classified: site methodology. How fresh, complete and consistent the data is, checked every day: data quality and coverage.

Editions

This report reads the live job boards every day. Each complete month is also published as an edition, frozen two days after the month ends, so a figure you cite from an edition never moves.

Live data (this page)Today's boards, read daily

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Free to quote, chart and republish under CC BY 4.0 with a link to this page. Live figures change daily: cite a monthly edition for numbers that will read the same later, or keep the access date.

Citation

SpaceJobs.Now (2026). Who Is Hiring in Space: Open Roles by Employer and Kind of Work (live data, 2 Oct 2026 to 29 Oct 2026). https://spacejobs.now/research/who-is-hiring-in-space (accessed 30 Oct 2026)

BibTeX

@misc{spacejobsnow_who_is_hiring_in_space_live,
  author = {{SpaceJobs.Now}},
  title = {Who Is Hiring in Space: Open Roles by Employer and Kind of Work (live data, 2 Oct 2026 to 29 Oct 2026)},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {\url{https://spacejobs.now/research/who-is-hiring-in-space}},
  note = {Accessed 30 Oct 2026},
}

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