Maritime and Coastguard Agency

The Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) is an executive agency of the Department for Transport, established in 1998 through the merger of Her Majesty's Coastguard and the Marine Safety Agency. Its core REMIT spans maritime safety regulation, vessel survey and certification, seafarer qualification and certification, port state control inspections of foreign vessels in UK waters, and pollution response. The agency employs approximately 1,000 staff across offices on the UK coastline and operates HM Coastguard, which coordinates all maritime search and rescue around the British Isles and in the eastern Atlantic.

As the primary UK flag-state authority, the MCA implements international conventions adopted by the International Maritime Organization (IMO), including SOLAS, MARPOL, and the Maritime Labour Convention. It administers the Workboat Code for smaller commercial vessels and issues the marine guidance notes that translate IMO resolutions into domestic operational requirements. For any operator seeking to deploy vessels commercially in UK waters, the MCA is simultaneously the certifier (vessel and crew licensing), the regulator (port state control and operational approval), and, in many cases, a direct customer through coastguard operations contracts. Headquarters are at Spring Place, Southampton.

The Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) is the regulatory gatekeeper for Maritime Autonomous Surface Ships (MASS) in UK waters. On 3 June 2026 the agency published the Maritime Innovation Hub, a formal regulatory pathway covering MASS trials across four vessel-size categories (under 2.5 m to over 24 m). Plymouth Harbour was designated a trial zone on 4 June. On 5 June the MCA removed the word 'sandbox' from its guidance, reclassifying the Hub as a permanent formal regulatory route rather than an experimental environment .

The Hub arrived 12 days after the IMO adopted the MASS Code at MSC 111 on 22 May 2026. The Code entered force on 1 July 2026, opening the non-mandatory Experience Building Phase; the MCA has given no timeline for translating it into UK national legislation. The MCA's existing MASS marine guidance notes (MGN 654, MGN 655) remain in force alongside the Hub, and the Workboat Code applies to smaller autonomous vessels in this category. This positions the MCA's domestic pathway as the bridging route between current voluntary IMO guidance and the binding Code. Any UK-based developer of autonomous maritime systems must engage the MCA before commercial deployment, making early regulatory dialogue a prerequisite rather than a late-stage compliance step.