Overview
You will join a friendly, highly collaborative, multi-disciplinary group with backgrounds including physics, mathematics, chemistry, engineering, geology and more. The candidate will be expected to support the technical direction of work areas providing waste assessment and disposability advice to waste providers, providing input to our company waste retrievals projects and supporting disposability on behalf of waste management organisations. Supporting activities include modelling or use of scientifically underpinned arguments in areas such as wasteform or container performance, thermal or impact analysis, criticality safety and more. The vacancy provides an excellent opportunity for those wishing to develop their careers, with potential to lead a key technical area and support the development of a growing team. We are operating under flexible working arrangements, with a mixture of office‑based and home working environments. The role can be based at Harwell, Dorchester, Birchwood or Scrabster and other locations will be considered.
As a Senior Waste Management Physicist, you will provide technical expertise on a wide variety of projects for customers including radioactive waste management organisations, radioactive waste producers and regulators, both in the UK and overseas. Work includes a wide variety of activities across the areas of integrated radioactive waste management, spent fuels and nuclear materials including:
Responsibilities
- Leading modelling studies in a range of technical areas; this may include simple or complex modelling to underpin safety and compliance requirements. Key modelling areas could include:
- Logistics or lifecycle analysis modelling.
- Wasteform properties and expected evolution.
- Container performance and durability.
- Accident performance (including fire, impact or both).
- Thermal modelling of radioactive waste under storage, transport or disposal conditions.
- Criticality safety modelling or assessment across the waste lifecycle.
- Sensitivity or uncertainty analyses for any of the above.
- Leading or providing significant input to disposability assurance activities for both Higher Activity Waste and Lower Activity Waste. This includes the development of disposability submissions (e.g. Waste Characterisation forms for the LLWR or Letter of Compliance submissions for NWS’s Geological Disposal programme) and the review of such disposal cases.
- Producing and checking calculations, analyses, design basis documentation and technical reports.
- Delivering high‑quality and bespoke technical and strategic support to our clients.
- Leading interactions with clients and stakeholders to ensure we understand the underlying requirements of our customers and how we can meet them.
- Supporting mentoring and skills development for our graduates and other junior staff.
- Supporting the continued development of our business through identifying, bidding for and winning new work, either with new or existing clients.
Qualifications
- A degree qualification (or equivalent training and experience) in an appropriate mathematical, physical science or engineering discipline.
- Significant experience in a comparable role (candidates need experience of some of the technical topic areas described above, but not necessarily all).
- Ability to identify appropriate modelling and/or assessment approaches for identified requirements, taking into account constraints of time, budget and the level of detail required.
- Able to clearly document and communicate assumptions that underpin the analyses undertaken and presented.
- Ability to analyse complex data sets and models, distil the important safety features and communicate concisely with specialists and senior stakeholders.
- Numerate with excellent technical writing/reviewing skills.
- High attention to detail in support of quality assurance requirements.
- Adaptable and able to work on a variety of projects, prioritising as appropriate.
Benefits and Work Environment
We offer a competitive package designed to retain and attract the best talent. UK employees receive free single medical cover and digital GP service, family‑friendly benefits such as enhanced parental leave pay and free membership of employee assistance and parental programmes, as well as reimbursement toward relevant professional development and memberships. Work‑life balance and flexibility are key focuses; we discuss hybrid, part‑time and flexible working hours, patterns and locations to suit you and our business.
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