Engineering Consultant - Nuclear Safety Case, Emergency Preparedness & Resilience

Corporate Risk Associates Limited (CRA) is one of the UK's largest integrated Risk, Safety and Human Factors consultancies. We have a long history of helping our clients in the UK nuclear and other high-hazard industries manage risk and ensure the safety of their operations.  As part of the Assystem Group we also have opportunities to support a wide variety of projects around the world.

CRA recognises that our staff are our greatest asset, and we strive to develop each consultant technically and professionally by providing them with the opportunities and support they need to grow and realise their potential.  For more junior staff, Initial Professional Development (IPD) focuses on attaining the competencies and the range of technical experience required to achieve Chartered status with their chosen professional institution through a combination of internal and external training and project experience.  For our more experienced staff, our Continued Professional Development (CPD) programme provides support to allow maintenance of existing skills and expertise, while developing new ones in complementary areas. 

We aim to provide a diverse and inclusive working environment with a healthy work-life balance and recognise the benefits that this brings to our business, our clients and our people.

Job Type: Permanent, Full time and Part Time

Experience level: From early career (2 years) up to Principal Engineer

Locations: Warrington & Cumbria, with hybrid working arrangements

Background to the role

If you are looking for an exciting new challenge and are passionate about developing yourself then we want to meet you.

We are recruiting for experienced Safety Case Engineers who wish to deepen their skillset in safety cases. Furthermore, this role will also allow you to build new experience in nuclear engineering, risk management and emergency preparedness.

The working location(s) for the role are envisaged to be North-West based, with Warrington and Cumbria being equally advantageous although we are also happy to discuss flexible working arrangements.

The role will be focused on supporting a specific highly regulated Licensee in Cumbria. Given the nature of current and future work, we have a preference for persons with safety case experience relevant to that Licensee or other nuclear decommissioning and waste management experience.

This opportunity will involve you working a part of multi-person team, with support from colleagues across the wider organisation.

Outside of that specific workstream, within CRA you will be supporting and helping to develop the capability of our team providing consultancy services spanning Safety Case, emergency preparedness and Security & Resilience. This provides a stimulating mix of consultancy, engineering and analysis, along with the delivery of challenging and sometimes unique projects to clients in the nuclear and non-nuclear sectors in the UK and beyond.

Whilst the specific role we are recruiting for is a long-term core work area, CRA are looking for candidates who are interested in working with a range of clients across the nuclear and other high hazard sectors.

Personal/Mindset Specification

We are keen to speak to applicants with the following attributes:

• Want to work in a role which simultaneously builds on your safety case experience and apply it to opportunities in projects in Security & Resilience. The core workstreams are focussed on a specific Licensee, but successful applicants will be open minded to applying their risk management skills to other sites and other sectors.
• Good analytical thinking skills and an ability to quickly grasp complex issues, applying knowledge and experience to deliver pragmatic, prioritised, and proportionate solutions.
• Appetite and/or experience of applying new approaches or innovative solutions. It is not uncommon for our projects to be innovative or sometimes even First-of-a-Kind. As such, it can be common for us to research and develop the methodology in tandem with producing assessments with that methodology.
• Able to work at both ‘big picture’ and detail levels.
• Ability to communicate, listen, and work collaboratively with a variety of stakeholders across different teams and business areas.
• Ability to build effective and strong working relationships with clients and colleagues. To work effectively, professionally and proactively with people, in face-to-face meetings and through interaction by video calls, telephone and email.
• Self-propelled and proactive.
• An appetite for, or experience of, commercial activities e.g. business development.
• Commitment to CPD for yourself and for others through all the stages of your career. This will be met with equal commitment from your team and your company.
• You will be joining an emergent team within CRA. In the fullness of time, the successful applicants will be willing to develop and mentor more junior members of staff.

Clearance

Due to the sensitive classification of the work this position is only available to those who have or are eligible to have, SC security clearance.

Technical Specification

The following technical skills would be essential:

• Familiarity and understanding of nuclear safety cases
• Either the experience or the or appetite to interrogate Radiological Consequence Assessments and adapt them when appropriate to the contexts of specialist assessments.
• Experience in preparing Technical Reports.
• Demonstrable experience of the application of safety and risk engineering processes to identify hazards and vulnerabilities, author safety cases, assess risk and implement controls to reduce risk to an acceptable level.
• STEM background of experience and education. This may include a degree qualification in a STEM topic. But equally valid is any other route which demonstrates credibility to the client base. We would envisage a level of experience of 2 years and higher.

Skills and/or experience in the following areas would be desirable:

• The role will be focused on supporting a specific highly regulated Licensee in Cumbria. Given the nature of current and future work, it will be highly advantageous to have safety case experience relevant or transferable to that specific Licensee
• Hazard identification, assessment and management techniques e.g. HAZOP, FMEA, FTA, Event Tree Analysis, Hazard Logs
• REPPIR
• Resilience & Emergency Preparedness
• Severe Accident Analysis
• Cyber Security
• Nuclear Security Assessments

What can you expect to gain?

This is a rare and exciting opportunity to work in projects which will build up your expertise simultaneously in the fields of nuclear engineering, safety case, risk management and emergency preparedness.

The immediate and potential future workstreams will involve the interrogation and adaptation of safety case information from across the full range of facilities and activities on a high hazard nuclear site, giving you a unique perspective of the hazard profiles and strategic functions of the client organisation and beyond. You will be supporting analysing, and where necessary, interpreting and modifying safety case documentation and consequence assessments to meet the requirements of a variety of safety & resilience / emergency preparedness projects. You can expect to build on your existing experience, working a dynamic and evolving area, to develop new skills and knowledge through the delivery of First-of-a-Kind projects. The types of projects we typically work have a turnaround time of anything from 3 to 18 months.

The outputs of the projects you will be supporting will put into use by downstream stakeholders from the client site and beyond to manage the changing hazard profile of their facilities and activities and refine their risk management capabilities. Your efforts will make a difference.

CRA recognises that our staff are our greatest asset, and we strive to develop each consultant technically and professionally by providing them with the opportunities and support they need to grow and realise their potential.  For more junior staff, Initial Professional Development (IPD) focuses on attaining the competencies and the range of technical experience required to achieve Chartered status with their chosen professional institution through a combination of internal and external training and project experience.  For our more experienced staff, our Continued Professional Development (CPD) programme provides support to allow maintenance of existing skills and expertise, while developing new ones in complementary areas. 

We aim to provide a diverse and inclusive working environment with a healthy work-life balance and recognise the benefits that this brings to our business, our clients and our people.

We provide our people with an excellent benefits package that comprises:

• Generous annual training allowance and tailored development pathway
• Fully flexible working arrangements to suit individuals
• 25 days' holiday entitlement plus an additional day of paid holiday on your birthday if this falls on a weekday
• Company bonus scheme
• Ability to sell or purchase leave
• Generous 8% Company pension scheme
• Life assurance
• Private medical insurance, including option to extend to other family members
• Paid membership of two professional institutions / organisations
• Cycle to work scheme
• Longevity bonus

Final Comments

If you are looking for a new challenge and are passionate about developing yourself then we want to meet you.

Salaries are negotiable depending on your skills and experience.

There is rarely such thing as a candidate who perfectly matches a pre-written job description. If you feel you meet many of the requirements for this role, we would love to hear from you. Similarly if you don’t feel ready just yet for this role, but you are interested in moving into this or similar work in the future, advantages still exist in you arranging an informal and confidential conversation with us today.

#LI-Hybrid and Hybrid remote/in-office

We are committed to equal treatment of candidates and promote, as well as foster all forms of diversity within our company. We believe that bringing together people with different backgrounds and perspectives is essential for creating innovative and impactful solutions. Skills, talent, and our people’s ability to dare are the only things that matter !. Bring your unique contributions and help us shape the future.