Airbus has announced it is entering into a employee restructure which will see the loss of more than 300 roles in the UK.

The company will reduce a total of 2,362 positions across the UK, Germany, Spain, France.

Airbus said in a statement: "Airbus Defence and Space has entered the consultation process with the company's European works council on the division's planned restructuring.

"While the underlying business perspectives especially in the core business remain solid, these steps became necessary after the division achieved a book-to-bill ratio below one for the third year in a row, mainly caused by a flat space market and postponed contracts on the defence side.

"The plans presented to the employee representatives foresee the reduction of 2,362 positions until end of 2021, thereof 829 in Germany, 357 in UK, 630 in Spain, 404 in France and 142 in other countries.

"These efforts will be supported by a reinforced profitability programme and further measures to increase long-term competitiveness and safeguard the division's future positioning."

A spokesman for the Stevenage branch told the Comet that there are no job cuts set for specific branches within the UK as it stands and the business is "looking at the situation".

He said: "At the moment we are looking at a reduction in posts. This has been caused by the reduction in the Telecommunications Geo Satellite market.

"About eight years ago companies were ordering 25 satellites a year, last year the total market was 10, so the market has halved in the last 10 years.

"We expect it to recover, but at the moment it's a workload issue.

"People come and go from our company all the time, when they leave the business or retire. Within Airbus we're looking to try and ensure that there are no job cuts and instead look at - when someone leaves - the need to replace that job, over the course of two years."The Stevenage branch of Airbus has been involved in a number of exciting space projects, including the building of ExoMars rover, which recently passed the rigorous testing phase in Toulouse, France, ahead of its launch in the summer.

It also was home to the building of the Solar Orbiter, which started its journey to the centre of our Solar System earlier this month.

Assistant general secretary for manufacturing for the union Unite, Steve Turner, said: "Unite will be reassuring our members and their families today, who are rightly concerned over their future, following the announcement by Airbus of 2,362 proposed job losses, some 357 here in the UK within their space and defence operations.

"This a world class workforce producing world beating equipment and technologies and Unite is already in discussion at both a UK and European level with the business, and will carefully scrutinise both the number and impact of any job losses during detailed negotiations commencing next week.

"We will work tirelessly to mitigate the impact of any UK job losses as well as current short-term challenges facing the cyber intelligence and security and space business arms of Airbus.

"Unite will leave no stone unturned in securing ongoing commitments to employees alongside investment plans and future workload to support all UK operations and will work with both the business and government to ensure UK national security and wider defence interests are not undermined by short-term reactions to short-term market difficulties."