UK Quantum Technology Hub in Sensors and Timing
The phase 2 national hub for quantum sensors and clocks, led by the University of Birmingham. It ran from 2019 to 2024.
Project data last updated 11 October 2026
About this project
The UK Quantum Technology Hub in Sensors and Timing was one of four hubs in the second phase of the UK National Quantum Technologies Programme. The University of Birmingham led it with Glasgow, Imperial, Nottingham, Southampton, Strathclyde and Sussex, plus the British Geological Survey. Dr Simon Bennett was director at the 2019 announcement, and Professor Michael Holynski is listed as principal investigator on the grant.
Phase 2 focused on uses for quantum sensors, including magnetometry for healthcare, geophysics, navigation and timing. Its work continues in the QuSIT hub.
Who leads it
Kai Bongs Former
Former Principal Investigator, UK Quantum Technology Hub Sensors and Timing
University of Birmingham
Lead organisation
University of Birmingham
University · Birmingham
Birmingham leads QuSIT, the UK quantum sensing, imaging and timing hub, and made the first field find with a quantum gravity gradiometer.
Partners (17)
University of Glasgow
University · Glasgow
Imperial College London
University · London
University of Nottingham
University · Nottingham
University of Southampton
University · Southampton
University of Strathclyde
University · Glasgow
University of Sussex
University · Brighton
British Geological Survey
Research organisation · Keyworth
NPL
Research organisation · Teddington
Dstl
Research organisation · Porton Down
RedWave Labs
Company · Didcot
PA Consulting Quantum Technology
Company · London
Oxford Instruments
Company · High Wycombe
M Squared Lasers
Company · Glasgow
BT Group
Company · London
Magnetic Shields
Company · Staplehurst
BAE Systems Quantum
Company · London
QinetiQ
Company · Farnborough
Funders
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council
Funder · Swindon
UK Research and Innovation
Funder · Swindon
In the news
Quantum Zeitgeist articles naming the lead organisation or partners. They may not be about this project.
OQC Says its simulator shows quantum-AI beats classical radar analysis, read on Quantum Zeitgeist
OQC’s Toshiko simulator shows their hybrid approach—combining classical AI with quantum techniques—outperforms a purely classical model in radar analysis.
Image © Quantum Zeitgeist
Vlatko Vedral, The Oxford Physicist Who Put a Number on Entanglement, read on Quantum Zeitgeist
Vlatko Vedral is Professor of Quantum Information Science at the University of Oxford, a Serbian-born physicist who has spent three decades asking what entanglement is and what it can do. Entanglement is the link that lets two particles share one quantum state. As a PhD student in London he helped f
Image © Quantum Zeitgeist
Ben Varcoe, The Leeds Physicist and Entrepreneur Behind Creavo and Cavero, read on Quantum Zeitgeist
Ben Varcoe is Professor of Quantum Information Science at the University of Leeds, and a physicist who builds companies as well as experiments. He first made his name in 2000 with a paper in Nature that showed how to make light containing an exact number of photons, something physicists had found ve
Image © Quantum Zeitgeist
Researchers Build Quantum Networks for Supervised Learning, read on Quantum Zeitgeist
Accuracy reached a perfect score of 1. 0 using a new quantum machine learning framework, contrasting sharply with its initial value of zero and exceeding the 0. 76 achieved by the standard version.
Image © Quantum Zeitgeist
Sources
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