Job Description

Have you worked in high hazard and/or highly regulated industries?
Would you like to help develop a “first of a kind” solution to decommissioning for Fusion?

UKAEA is a world leader in fusion technology and about to undertake a once in a generation project to decommission the JET Fusion Reactor. The overall programme is circa £450M over 12 years.

The ambitious programme will involve undertaking first-of-a-kind decommissioning studies of a tritiated fusion reactor, to identify components suitable for re-purposing into the wider scientific community within and outside UKAEA. The programme is innovative and will demonstrate innovative “first of a kind” approaches to reduce waste burdens and through life cost. It will demonstrate solutions to the challenges of decommissioning fusion energy, benefiting from Culham’s breadth of expertise and its suite of research facilities.

The programme is forward thinking in its technical approach and combines this with project management rigour in delivering value for money in decommissioning.

You’ll be heading up a team of Lead Engineers specialising in various areas; Decommissioning of redundant nuclear plant, Repurposing and recycling of assets, and a New build of two waste processing facilities and site infrastructure to support the Decommissioning Programme.

Specifically, you will provide strategic technical leadership, influencing the direction of the decommissioning programme and leadership of the Lead Engineers. You’ll oversee technical delivery across the programme working closely with the Decommissioning Programme Managers and the Decommissioning Director. You’ll lead the development of the technical strategy to which individual projects will align in the building of their technical specifications ready to tender to the supply chain. As the supply chain is engaged and contracts implemented, the Head of Engineering will steer technical priorities and ensure interfaces between projects mature in their definition to the benefit of the programme, through to project completion.

You’ll:
* Oversee the technical delivery of the Decommissioning and Repurposing Programmes to a high standard.
* With the assistance of the Programme Managers, build and maintain a high performing, diverse project team able to deliver the programme scope to a high technical standard, safely, to time and within budget.
* Challenge design teams on projects to think creatively, testing conventional approaches against key success criteria to ensure best options are selected efficiently in line with a harmonious technical approach across the programme.
* Manage the production of technical documentation describing the strategy and overall design philosophy for the programme including design bases and other technical framework definition documents.
* Steer the allocation and definition of technical scope across the individual projects, harmonising requirements for each.
* Be the point of engineering knowledge to harmonise technical specifications across the programme, ready to tender to the supply chain – Oversee intelligent customer operations in the technical award and execution of contracts – through to project completion.
* Contribute to the overall commercial strategy for the programme and set expectations for technical interactions across projects with the supply chain
* Harmonise the sequence and logic of review and endorsement of the selected design approaches across the programme with key stakeholders according to the Authority Technical Control System
* Develop and implement organisational as well as technical improvements. Ensure compliance across Lead Engineers to management systems, policies and procedures.
* Use engineering experience to foresee opportunities for business development and contribute to related proposals and bids which may include submitting budgets and business cases.
* Aggregate technical risks originating in projects, identifying trends and leading the development of mitigations to major technical risks at the programme level.
* Ensure that the project SHE culture and working practices are in alignment with the UKAEA requirements.
* Embed and realise UKAEAs EDI and Social Value goals

Note position is predominantly office based – 4 days a week with the option of working from home Fridays

You’ll need:
* Experience of delivering technically complex programmes in high hazard industries.
* Experience of developing a deliverable programme schedule (Primavera – using a scheduler). Ability to identify risk trends early, the potential impact on the programme critical path, employing mitigations.
* Adept in managing scope boundaries and interdependencies between neighbouring projects.
* Good at building working relationships across a programme, ensuring gaps in scope are eliminated and the Mission is being consistently met.
* Commercial acumen at the strategic programme level, placing complex technical projects with the supply chain

* A relevant engineering degree or equivalent.
* Experience of delivering complex technical programmes in a high hazard environment.
* Chartered Engineer status with a suitable professional institution.
* Ability to sanction and challenge design calculations using first principles.
* Experience of working within a highly regulated environment.
* Experience of managing a multidisciplinary project team.
* Experience with working to design standards.
* Leading teams and supervising other staff.

UKAEA requires all workers to complete a Basic Personnel Security Standard (BPSS) check.