Independent Nuclear Safety Assessment Principal

Atomic Weapons Establishment; Aldermaston; On-site; GBP 90,000 - 130,000; Full time

Job summary

Atomic Weapons Establishment is seeking an experienced Independent Oversight professional to implement IO strategy, lead INSA specialists, and drive governance across changes with significant impact on security, environment, safety, health and quality. The role involves mentoring, high-level assessment, and coordination with regulators and leadership teams.

You will work with the Head of INSA to plan and deliver IO integrated programmes, maintain baseline safety roles, and promote best practices

Qualifications

• Experience leading INSA or similar safety/governance programmes.
• Strong ability to mentor and develop specialists in a high consequence environment.
• Proven track record of coordinating with regulators and internal governance bodies.

Responsibilities

• Create and maintain an environment that encourages identification of improvements and their implementation.
• Provide mentorship to the IO integrated team to deliver plans and reports.
• Produce accurate assessments of changes ensuring alignment with policies and regulatory requirements.
• Analyse long term impacts of changes on security, environment, safety, health and quality.
• Prepare and deliver reports tailored to technical and non-technical audiences.

Skills

Leadership & mentoring

Stakeholder engagement

Governance & regulatory

Security clearance awareness

Job description

Job Description Summary

Provide Independent Nuclear Safety Assessment (INSA) of processes and governance for changes that have the potential to have a significant effect on security, environment, safety, health and quality. Provide key strategic insights through the life of the change including post change to ascertain whether unforeseen risks or issues were introduced. Provide mentoring, coaching and development of INSA Specialists.

Job Description

Implement the Independent Oversight (IO) strategy, creating frameworks and arrangements within INSA to support its delivery. Work with the Head of INSA to create the INSA plan and ensure its delivery to time and quality. Lead, coach and develop INSA Specialists and influence others at all levels, fostering collaboration and driving the delivery of the IO integrated programme and wider business programmes. Undertake strategic level assessment of processes and governance for changes that have the potential to have a significant effect, that enable delivery of key insights to the IO Leadership Team. Provide comprehensive feedback and reports to various levels of the organisation, from operational teams to senior leadership, offering constructive challenge and recognising achievements. Support other Corporate Assurance teams ensuring alignment and collaboration across the function. Act as the primary contact for escalations and assist the INSA Specialists in making informed tactical decisions. Maintain (where required) baseline roles related to safety, environment, and security, ensuring compliance and promoting best practices. Inspire colleagues by fostering a diverse and inclusive workplace culture. Encourage continuous improvement and support personal development initiatives. Maintain and promote high personal standards in environment, safety, health, security, and quality.

This role may require you to fulfil any other reasonable duties aligned to your position from time to time in line with business needs.

Key Responsibilities

• Create and maintain an environment that encourages team members to identify trends and continuous improvement opportunities and then propose ways for effective implementation.
• Provide mentorship and guidance to the IO integrated team, fostering their growth and enabling them to deliver impactful IO plans and reports.
• Produce accurate assessments of changes; completed to scope, identifying any risk, and ensuring proposed changes aligns with organisational policies, regulatory requirements, and best practices from across industry.
• Analyse the potential long term impacts of changes on security, environment, safety, health and quality.
• Monitor trends from past changes to provide informed insights and lessons learned.
• Prepare and deliver reports tailored to different audiences (covering both technical and non technical aspects).
• Create and maintain effective working relationships with stakeholders to ensure IO activities are fair, proportionate and value adding.
• Maintain effective working relationship with external regulators, providing confidence in AWEs processes and governance for changes that have the potential to have a significant effect on security, environment, safety, health and quality, and the effectiveness of the internal challenge capability.
• Ensure the adoption and integration of both internal and external best practices (maintaining a professional link into the wider nuclear industry) within IO, aligning processes with industry standards and organisational objectives.

Important things you need to know

You will need to obtain and maintain the necessary security clearance for the role. This will be funded by AWE.

The nature of our work does mean you need to be a British Citizen who has been resident in the UK for the past 5 years in order to apply for SC clearance and 10 years for DV.

We want you to feel comfortable and able to shine during our recruitment process.

Please let us know on your application form if you need any adjustments/accommodations during the process.

Our interviews typically take place over Teams and for most roles are a 1 stage process.

Our ambition is to create workplaces where we recognise and celebrate differences, encourage diverse contributions and our employees feel able to shine during our recruitment process.

We strive to create a genuine culture of openness and inclusion and encourage diverse applicants.

Any inclusion information you provide will be stored in accordance with GDPR and kept separate from your application form and CV, and the information will not be shared with anyone involved in interviewing or making hiring decisions.

Please note that you must be a British Citizen to apply for a role with us.

If you’re looking for a role with excitement, intrigue and something that really makes a difference then now is the time to join AWE.

We are at the start of a once in a generation - possibly two generations - programme to design and produce a replacement warhead for the UK's continuous at sea deterrent. We will do this while continuing to deliver the Trident programme as well as managing ambitious state-of-the-art capital and construction projects - some of which have never been done before.

Find out more on our website.

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