What Uranus governs
Uranus covers abrupt change, technology, independence and the point at which a person will not continue with an arrangement they have inherited. It is read for the break rather than the process that follows it, which is why its transits are described in terms of events that arrive without warning.
The distinguishing quality is speed. Where Saturn builds and Pluto grinds, Uranus removes a structure quickly and leaves the reorganisation to something else in the chart.
Seven years, and what that means for the sign
Seven years in a sign means the Uranus sign is shared with everyone born across most of a decade. It describes what a cohort collectively refused or rebuilt, not an individual temperament, and any reading that treats it as a personality trait is describing several million people at once.
This is worth stating plainly because Uranus sign interpretations circulate widely as if they were personal. They are historical descriptions. They tell you which conventions were under pressure while a group was growing up.
The house is the whole personal reading
Since the sign is shared across a cohort, everything individual about a natal Uranus comes from two places: the house it occupies and the aspects it makes to the personal bodies. The house names the single area of life where the person's arrangements are unstable and where they will not accept a standard solution. Uranus in the fourth house does that to home and family; in the seventh it does it to partnership.
Both of those require an accurate birth time. With no time recorded, a Uranus reading has almost nothing individual left in it, and it is better to say so than to interpret the sign as though it were personal.
Rulership and dignity
Modern astrology assigns Uranus the rulership of Aquarius, which traditionally belongs to Saturn. Some practitioners read both, taking Saturn for the structure of an Aquarian placement and Uranus for what disrupts it.
There is no agreed classical dignity scheme for Uranus, since the planet was unknown when those schemes were fixed. Exaltation in Scorpio is sometimes proposed and detriment in Leo follows from the Aquarius rulership, but these are later conventions rather than inherited doctrine, and practitioners differ on whether to use them at all.
Retrograde, which is close to half the year
Uranus is retrograde for about five months every year, so roughly two in five charts have it. At that rate it carries very little individual meaning and is mostly a fact about the observing position rather than about the person.
The more useful cycle is the Uranus opposition, when transiting Uranus reaches the point opposite its natal degree at around age forty to forty-two. That is a timing marker rather than a prediction, and it accounts for a large part of what popular writing calls a midlife crisis.
Questions people ask about this
Is my Uranus sign personal?
No. It stays in a sign for about seven years, so it describes a cohort. The house and the aspects carry the individual reading.
Does Uranus rule Aquarius?
In modern practice yes. Traditionally Aquarius belongs to Saturn, and many astrologers read both.
Does Uranus have an exaltation?
Not a classical one. It was discovered in 1781, long after the dignity schemes were set, so any attributed dignities are modern conventions.
What is the Uranus opposition?
The transit when Uranus reaches the degree opposite its natal position, which happens at around age forty to forty-two.