Senior R&D Engineer (Tools and Methodologies)

Company: UK Atomic Energy Authority

Location: South Oxfordshire

Posted: April 18th, 2026

Senior R&D Engineer (Tools and Methodologies)

By 2050, the planet could be using twice as much electricity compared to today. Are you interested in contributing and helping to shape the future of the world’s energy? If so, read on.

Fusion, the process that powers the Sun and Stars, is one of the most promising options for generating the cleaner, carbon‑free energy that our world badly needs.

UKAEA leads the way in realizing fusion energy, partnering with industry and research for ground‑breaking advancements. Our goal is to bring fusion electricity to the grid, supported by tomorrow's power stations. In pursuit of our mission, UKAEA embraces core values: Innovative, Committed, Trusted, and Collaborative.

Benefits

The salary for this role is £57,117 (inclusive of Specialist Allowance). Onsite working is expected for 3 days minimum each week, however, we actively support requests for flexible working.

This role is based at the following site: Culham, Oxfordshire.

This role requires employees to complete an online Baseline Personnel Security Standard (BPSS), including the Disclosure & Barring Service (DBS) checks for criminal convictions and possibly a search of open source data.

The Role

As a Senior R&D Engineer (Tools and Methodologies), you will play a pivotal role in UKAEA’s test rigs and facilities projects, developing and applying best practice tools and methodologies to enable successful delivery of engineering solutions to high impact fusion problems.

You will work closely with engineering and science teams to support adoption of the most appropriate approaches to maximising value from testing and from verification and validation activities – providing training, facilitating workshops, preparing guidance material and generally championing best practice. The teams in which you will work will be highly cross‑disciplinary and will involve supporting systems engineers to ensure that the needs of programmes are being met.

Key Accountabilities

Qualifications

Diversity & Inclusion

We welcome talented people from all backgrounds who want to help us achieve our mission. We encourage applications from under‑represented groups, particularly women in STEM, people from Black, British, Caribbean, and African, Pakistani and Bangladeshi British, and other ethnic minority backgrounds, people with disabilities, and neurotypical individuals. Our Executive team, supported by our Head of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) and Wellbeing and our EDI Networks actively promote Inclusion and take steps to increase diversity within our organisation. We reinforce best practices in recruitment and selection and evaluate approaches to remove barriers to success.

Please note that vacancies are generally advertised for 4 weeks but may close earlier if we receive a large number of applications.

For applicants applying from outside the United Kingdom or those who have spent time outside the UK in the last five years, please visit the following link for information on criminal records checks: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/criminal-records-checks-for-overseas-applicants. If your country of residence or previous residence is not listed on the website or if the UK Government does not have information on obtaining a criminal records check from that state, we regret to inform you that we cannot process your application.

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