Senior Waste Management Physicist

We’ll inspire and empower you to deliver your best work so you can evolve, grow and succeed - today and into tomorrow. We offer an exciting range of opportunities to develop your career within a supportive and diverse team who always strive to do the right thing for our people, clients and communities.

People are our greatest asset, and we offer a competitive package to retain and attract the best talent. In addition to the benefits you’d expect, UK employees also 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, plus reimbursement towards relevant professional development and memberships. We also give back to our communities through our Collectively program which incorporates matched-funding, paid volunteering time and charitable donations.

Work-life balance and flexibility is a key focus area for us. We’re happy to discuss hybrid, part-time and flexible working hours, patterns and locations to suit you and our business.

About the Opportunity

We are recruiting for a Senior Waste Management Physicist to join our Radioactive Waste Management Consultancy business. Due to the rapid growth of our business in civil nuclear waste management we require more support to deliver and continue to expand our expertise.

We have a leading role in waste strategy, inventory and compliance underpinning the future management of radioactive waste, spent nuclear fuels and nuclear materials. In the UK, we deliver a diverse range of projects for waste producers, waste management organisations and strategic authorities across all aspects of the waste lifecycle. We are delivering similarly interesting and exciting projects across the globe including projects for clients in Norway, Central & Eastern Europe and Japan.

We are looking to recruit a highly motivated candidate as a Senior Waste Management Physicist to play a key role in continuing the growth of our business. 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.

Key Responsibilities:

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:

1. Leading modelling studies in a range of technical areas; this may include simple or complex modelling to underpin safety and compliance requirements. Depending on the experience of the individual, 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

Here's What You'll Need:

1. A degree qualification (or equivalent training and experience) in an appropriate mathematical, physical science or engineering discipline
2. Significant experience in a comparable role (candidates need experience of some of the technical topic areas described above, but not necessarily all)
3. 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
4. Able to clearly document and communicate assumptions that underpin the analyses undertaken and presented
5. Ability to analyse complex data sets and models, distil the important safety features and communicate concisely with specialists and senior stakeholders
6. Numerate with excellent technical writing/reviewing skills
7. High attention to detail in support of quality assurance requirements
8. Adaptable and able to work on a variety of projects, prioritising as appropriate

The following are not essential but we welcome applications from candidates who have any of the following experience:

• Applying nuclear-industry software tools (e.g. Abaqus, COMSOL, MONK, MCNP, FISPIN, GoldSim)
• Scientific programming (e.g. Python, Mathematica, MATLAB or advanced Microsoft Excel features such as macros)
• Experience of regulatory requirements applicable to radioactive waste and its management including storage, transport, facility operations and long term disposal.
• General knowledge of reactor physics and engineering - specifically how nuclear fuel behaves in a reactor and how fission and fusion processes generate radioactive waste
• Business development, project management and client engagement

Our Culture

Our values stand on a foundation of safety, integrity, inclusion and diversity. We put people at the heart of our business, and we genuinely believe that we all succeed by supporting one another through our culture of caring. We value positive mental health and a sense of belonging for all employees.

We aim to embed inclusion and diversity in everything we do. We know that if we are inclusive, we’re more connected, and if we are diverse, we’re more creative. We accept people for who they are, regardless of age, disability, gender identity, gender expression, marital status, mental health, race, faith or belief, sexual orientation, socioeconomic background, and whether you’re pregnant or on family leave. This is reflected in our wide range of Global Employee Networks centered on inclusion and diversity.

We partner with VERCIDA to help us attract and retain diverse talent. For greater online accessibility, please visit www.vercida.com to view and access our roles. As a Disability Confident employer, we will interview all disabled applicants who meet the minimum criteria for a vacancy. We welcome applications from candidates who are seeking flexible working and from those who may not meet all the listed requirements for a role.