The industry is diverse. Your career should be too

How I'm thriving with variety and significance across nuclear safety

My name is Jo, and I'm a nuclear safety engineer at AtkinsRéalis. My primary role is to provide engineering and safety advice during the design and operation of nuclear facilities and for the production of nuclear safety documentation including hazard assessments.

Over the past four years, I've worked for an array of clients, including EDF, NNB GenCo, Babcock, and Rolls-Royce SMR (RR SMR), amongst others. You find that all licensees have different approaches and do things slightly differently, but the fundamentals are ultimately the same.

What I actually do...

My experience so far has focused on delivering internal and external hazards assessments, and safety case production. Potential internal hazards on nuclear sites include fires, explosions, flooding, and resulting from the failure of pressurised or rotating parts. More recently, I have worked on extremely high air temperature hazards and, more broadly, external hazards. These are key focus areas in the safety assessment, the aim is to put measures in place to demonstrate that the risk of a Nuclear incident is reduced to As Low As Reasonably Practicable (ALARP), creating a clear link between safety claims and supporting evidence.

My most exciting project yet

A highlight of my career has been a challenging role as an internal hazards engineer for RR SMR. RR SMR are currently going through a generic design assessment (GDA). It was the first small modular reactor (SMR) to start GDA in the UK, completing Step 2 of GDA and moving into Step 3 this year. GDA allows the regulators to assess new nuclear power station designs for deployment in the UK.

My role was to support the engineering programme.

I ensured internal hazards were adequately considered within the design and helped design teams move projects from concept design stage to detailed design and ensuring internal hazards have been adequately considered. I led the delivery of GDA deliverables and interacted with regulators and responded to regulator queries as we progressed through the GDA process. I'm constantly working across multidisciplinary teams across safety analysis, civil engineering, layout, integration, etc.

The role has been fast-paced and interesting and has helped me develop technically and professionally. It's been great to influence the design at an early stage and see the impact this has had in getting it to where it is now.

Why I love working at AtkinsRéalis

I really enjoy the variety of work here. I like being able to work across different workstreams for varying clients and technologies. This means it is possible to work for more than one client at a time and gain a lot of different experiences while holding the same role and working in the same team. This really accelerates your growth and development, as there are always new challenges and exciting opportunities. Over four years I have worked across pretty much every project lifecycle in the Nuclear sector from Generic Design Assessment, new build, generation as well as defense and for a multitude of different clients.

More recently, I've taken on technical leadership roles and grown my commercial awareness - these have all been highlights beyond day-to-day technical delivery.

I've also really enjoyed developing in non-technical ways.

I took on management responsibilities over a year ago, and I've enjoyed developing junior engineers on the team. Guiding their career development has been really rewarding. I enjoy mentoring others because I'm not only helping them build their skills but also developing my communication and mentorship skills.

I'm taking the path to leadership.

AtkinsRéalis has great signature training programs. I've previously completed the INSPIRE women's development programme, which taught me a lot about myself and my strengths and helped me figure out my career direction. This year I am on the Manager's Essential Program to develop as a people leader.

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