The Milspo Life Blog

Happy April Fools' Day! As much as we’d love to see the brilliance of the Spousal Operational Control SOC we're not sure they'd ever forgive us. But, we do know that just as we are very proud of the very important work of the Armed Forces, they are just as proud of us, their spouses and partners....but we could do with some help. The careers of the partners of serving personnel (we like to call ourselves Milspo's = MILitary Spouses, Partners and Other-halves) are often hidden behind the impressive work of our serving partners. We want to change this... [...]

What a day we had at our Amazon Milspo Live conference 2026. Military spouses and partners in business joined us from from across the forces world to meet, network, collaborate, and support - and it was epic! A huge thanks to Amazon for hosting us and understanding what we all know - that military spouses and partners are the backbone of the U.K. armed forces and a crucial part of the UK‘s defence effectiveness - some of us are also running some pretty impressive businesses too. A special thank you to the brilliant panel speakers, some of the most [...]

This year’s International Women’s Day is on the 8th March, and I’ll be celebrating, along with fellow spouses, female Veterans, and widows aboard HMSBelfast, London at ‘The Female Voice’ event. I’ve also been asked to speak - something that I love to do. But, I haven’t always felt this confident in business, in fact for a little while there I was completely lost in this challenging military life that I now find myself in.  Here’s my story… Female entrepreneurship isn’t a new thing, but the amount of female-run businesses that are achieving amazing things is growing and I love it!  [...]

Military life can sometimes be a bit lonely, can’t it? Add running your own business into the equation, and there’s a chance that you will be feeling even more isolated than ever! Thankfully, there’s a growing online community, online, stuffed full of amazing Milspo business owners who always have your back. The Milspo Business Network is a community of over 1,400 entrepreneurial partners of UK personnel who connect, mentor and help others to build posting-proof businesses that can survive this crazy military life. The network has grown massively in the last eight years, from a simple podcast to a complete [...]

Milspo Network (Milspo) founder Jess Sands is showcased by The Telegraph and NatWest on their 100 Female Entrepreneurs to Watch list. The list shines a spotlight on some of the most exciting businesses in the UK and includes The Milspo Network, a social enterprise that helps all armed forces, military spouses, partners and other-halves (SPO) to build their own sustainable businesses. Founded by Jess Sands in 2018, Milspo offers inspiration, business advice and peer-to-peer support to armed forces partners worldwide. Today, the network has over 1,300 members and continues to develop and expand. Its goal remains to alleviate the [...]

Time for something a little different. Jess, host of The InDependent Spouse was asked to be a guest on the Give Us Time podcast series and what follows is the complete episode. Give Us Time is a charity that offers free holidays to the military community, to help us connect with our serving partners and have quality time together as a family. Huge thanks to Give Us Time for allowing us to share this episode.

Forces Families Jobs is an employment and training platform specifically designed to support Service families into meaningful employment and provide opportunities for training and development. The platform is being delivered by a tri-Service partnership between the Naval Families Federation (NFF), Army Families Federation (AFF) and Royal Air Force Families Federation (RAF-FF). The offical launch happened on Tuesday, 17th September at The House of Lords. It was an amazing event that hosted a great collection of Armed Forces supporters and community, all there to celebrate the launch of the site. I was very honoured to be asked to be one [...]