Head of Materials Research Facility

Culham Centre for Fusion Energy • Full-time • Culham, England, United Kingdom • £87.04k / year • 1m ago

Overview of Responsibilities

The salary for this role is £87,038 (inclusive of a Specialist Allowance. Onsite working is expected for 3 days each week, however, we actively support requests for flexible working.

This role is to be 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

Are you looking for an exciting opportunity to make a difference? Join our team and contribute to the future of fusion energy. As Head of Materials Research Facility, you will play a pivotal role in acting as the lab manager with strong outward facing capabilities in the nuclear sector. You will implement new investments, provide direction and technical leadership to the team, ensure safe and effective utilisation and leveraging of MRF capability, enhance integration of the MRF with the broader UKAEA Materials Programme and deliver improved connectivity with, and relative positioning within, the fusion laboratories community internationally.

Key Accountabilities:

Manage the MRF Operations, with special responsibility for all nuclear aspects (including particular radioactive and tritium related protocols). The post-holder is supported by an experienced ATOH and specialists in radioactive handling processes, waste and transport, health physics, etc.
Manage the MRF business, by coordinating multiple streams of funding from BEIS, EPSRC, The Henry Royce Institute, the National Nuclear User Facility platform, and several large ad hoc consortia grants. These need to reflect and be monitored in a working budget.
- Drive effective utilisation of MRF capability and capacity, utilising annual MRF Board and User Panel meetings to understand broader UKAEA and external stakeholder requirements.
- Position MRF within the global fusion community, ensuring a unique selling proposition relative to KIT, Juelich, Garching and the USA national laboratories. Sustain fission presence through UK catapult and Royce and NNUF networks and events. Maintain a strong working relationship with the UK’s National Nuclear Laboratory.
- Align the investment, commissioning and engineering activity with commercial and fusion strategic priorities (e.g. STEP programme delivery).
- Ensure MRF is fully leveraged by the NMI and MSE teams and widely integrated with Fusion Technology, H3AT, RACE and Tokamak Science materials characterisation specialists.
- Manage the MRF team via a facilities lead, engineering lead, active test work team lead, and project lead. Provide coaching and mentorship to ensure strong technical and line supervision through the structure. Performance manage via target setting, team meetings, job performance feedback and development activities.
- Represent the MRF and the Materials BU at the Operations Committee and PmPC respectively.

Salary

£87,038 (inclusive of Specialist Allowance) + excellent benefits including outstanding pension

View benefits

Programme

MRF

Department

Materials

Discipline

Science

Site Location

UKAEA Culham, Oxfordshire

Type of Employment

Full-time

Reference Number

REF3387R

Qualifications

Essential:

Proven experience in large team management
Proven experience in budget responsibilities
Proven experience in lab operations
Well developed leadership and communication skills
Recognised leader in the Fusion community
Science, Engineering or Technology PhD or equivalent experience
Proven track record of building relationships, networks, and collaborations with industry and academia.

Desirable:

Experience in the handling of radioactive test samples
Experience of working with tritium and beryllium

Additional Information

A full list of our benefits can be found here https://careers.ukaea.uk/life-at-ukaea/employee-benefits/.

We welcome talented people from all backgrounds who want to help us achieve our mission. We encourage applications from under-represented groups, particularly from women in STEM, people from BlackBritishCaribbean 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 takes 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.