Compliance and Nuclear Safety Lead

If you’d like to be considered for this opportunity we encourage you to apply promptly to avoid disappointment as if applications are high the role will close before the closing date given.

Compliance and Nuclear Safety Lead

Location: Aldermaston, Reading

Working pattern: AWE operates a 9-day working fortnight, with every other Friday as a non-working day. For this role, employees are required to work fully onsite. We support flexible working arrangements where possible, including part-time and varied working hours, while maintaining an onsite presence. Please let us know if you would like us to consider an alternative working pattern as part of your application.

Let us introduce the role

AWE is currently recruiting a Compliance and Nuclear Safety Lead to enable safe, compliant, and efficient delivery and ensuring assets and operations remain credible over the short, medium, and long term.

What you’ll do:

• Lead the development, integration, and maintenance of the Nuclear Safety, conventional safety, and underpinning safety justifications for the Business Unit.
• Ensure safety cases remain current, coherent, and aligned to operational configuration, facility condition, and planned change.
• Provide authoritative advice to Business Unit leadership on safety case adequacy, margins, constraints, and limitations.
• Hold Business Unit accountability for compliance against Nuclear Site Licence Conditions, Authorisation Conditions, environmental permits, and conventional safety legislation.
• Provide assurance that business unit operations are delivered safely and in full compliance with nuclear, environmental, health, safety, security, and quality requirements.
• Own interpretation and application of regulatory expectations within the Business Unit, ensuring proportionality and consistency.
• Act on behalf of the Duty Holder for governance, permissioning and assurance of operations at the Nuclear Safety Justification level.
• Enable and evidence Collective Competence and SQEP arrangements across the Business Unit.
• Ensure appropriate, demonstrable governance and management arrangements are in place and effective.
• Serve as the principal regulatory interface for the Business Unit.
• Lead engagement with nuclear, environmental, and conventional safety regulators, including inspections, interventions, and formal correspondence.
• Build credible, transparent relationships that support early alignment, reduced regulatory friction and effective issue resolution.
• Define, own, and lead the Business Unit Nuclear Risk Management programme.
• Ensure nuclear risks are clearly identified, owned, mitigated, and integrated into Business Unit decision‑making and planning.
• Provide clear escalation and advice on emerging safety or regulatory risks.
• Compile, maintain and present Strategic Long‑Term Operability summaries, providing an integrated view of safety justification health, regulatory risk, facility condition, and future operability.
• Ensure Strategic Long-term Operability insight informs investment decisions, prioritisation, recovery plans, and future capability introduction.
• Lead compliance and assurance against environmental and sustainability obligations, embedding responsible stewardship of nuclear materials, assets, and liabilities across their life cycle.
• Provide independent, authoritative challenge while remaining delivery‑enabling and risk‑informed.
• Promote a strong nuclear safety and compliance culture, empowering teams to constructively challenge weakness or vulnerability.
• Support incident response, learning, assurance activities, and continuous improvement.
• Coordinate specialists and stakeholders across safety, engineering, operations, and assurance to maintain alignment between safety justification, operational reality, and future intent.
• Monitor indicators, trends and emerging issues across compliance, nuclear risk, asset condition, and regulatory performance, escalating concerns early and advising on proportionate action.
• Prepare robust evidence, briefing and responses for governance forums, internal assurance activity, and regulatory interactions, ensuring information is accurate, coherent, and timely.
• Drive timely resolution of compliance gaps, regulatory findings, safety case shortfalls, and operability concerns through clear ownership, prioritisation, and follow-through.
• Integrate long-term operability, sustainability and lifecycle considerations into day-to-day decision-making, recovery planning, investment choices, and future capability planning.
• Coach and influence leaders, managers and specialists to build regulatory maturity, strengthen collective competence and embed a culture of constructive challenge and learning.
• Support incident response, recovery, and continuous improvement by identifying lessons, shaping corrective actions, and tracking delivery through to closure.