Nuclear Safety Inspector – Electrical and Control &Instrumentation (C&I) Engineering

Nuclear Safety Inspector – Electrical and Control & Instrumentation (C&I) Engineering

Bootle / Cheltenham / London

Band 3: £70,329 - £80,940 (plus an additional £3,992 London Weighting Allowance)

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The challenge

Often in the public eye, the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) is an evolving public corporation. Essentially, we’re responsible for shaping and delivering the regulation of nuclear safety and security across the UK. Checking the electrical and C&I engineering aspects of nuclear installations is an incredible technical challenge, and we now need skilled specialists to apply their expertise across a range of sites.

The role

Our Nuclear Safety Inspectors are responsible for ensuring regulatory compliance and, as necessary, influencing improvements in safety standards to provide reassurance to the public and other stakeholders. Their work can involve everything from inspecting sites and assessing complex system designs through to investigating incidents and enforcing the law. Although technical credibility is vital, our Inspectors need excellent people skills too. It’s important they can understand issues, suggest solutions and work as part of a team.  

In this role, you’ll be looking at electrical and C&I systems to assess regulatory compliance and ensure that their implementation and use achieves the high standards of safety performance demanded in the nuclear sector. Although you’ll spend time visiting nuclear sites, you’ll also work as part of an expert team on office-based design assessments. Electrical and C&I engineering is a complex field that will test your technical knowledge and practical capability to the full. In electrical engineering focus is given to those essential electrical systems needed to provide energy with high availability to support the operation of safety systems, structures and components. Meanwhile, in C&I engineering you’ll be looking at complex systems that are capable of achieving SILs 1-4 as assigned by BS IEC 61508 and/or Classes 1-3 systems as described in BS IEC 61513. At this level, you must have an understanding of modern analysis techniques, such as those specified in BS IEC 61508, plus the ability to explain the challenges, including potential failure causes, to nuclear inspectors from other disciplines.

The person                            

Ideally, you’ll be an experienced specialist in electrical or C&I engineering with a high level of knowledge and understanding of both fields. However, if your experience is based more in one field than the other, we’d still like to hear from you.

In electrical engineering, we’re looking for in-depth knowledge of the design, installation, commissioning, maintenance and operation of electrical systems, including those used in an emergency role in the event of the failure of the grid-based power supply systems. Practical knowledge of the design and commissioning of high integrity standby electrical power supply systems of the type found in nuclear installations, high hazard facilities or in applications such as electrical support for mission-critical services is an advantage. More important, is experience of the design, maintenance, operation and safety analysis (or mission-critical analysis) of electrical systems with high availability targets (e.g. 99.99% or better) when called upon to operate. The design and analysis of such systems requires good knowledge of redundancy and diversity techniques, advanced protection coordination, transient and stability studies, loading and sequencing of diesel generators, earthing systems and performance under normal and fault conditions of major components such as switchgear, transformers and electrical protection systems.

In C&I, we’re looking for knowledge and experience of design and safety analysis of hardware and/or software aspects of safety systems to perform at SILs 1-4 for nuclear chemical processing or defence facilities or Class 1-3 systems for nuclear power plants. Similar experience on high-hazard plants or mission-critical facilities will also be considered. If you have software engineering expertise, we’ll be looking for an understanding of modern static and dynamic analysis software techniques. If you’re specialism lies in hardware, you’ll need a firm grasp of the concepts associated with functional safety, such as safe failure fraction, the role of diagnostics and the architectural design of safety systems.

Whatever your background, you’ll need a good degree (or equivalent) in a scientific or engineering subject. You should also have achieved Chartered Membership of a relevant professional body (or be able to demonstrate equivalent experience that can lead to this status). Collaborative and team-focused with a keen eye for detail, you’ll have experience from the nuclear sector and/or high hazard industry, an organised approach, the ability to influence and the capability to deliver at pace in regulating electrical and C&I engineering within an industry sector that continues to evolve and innovate.

For further information about the technical aspects of this role, please download the full job description, available on our website. 

Please note that you are likely to be working from home initially due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The rewards

We offer competitive salaries at the ONR, with this role attracting a salary of £70,329 - £80,940 (plus an additional £3,992 London Weighting Allowance). Furthermore, you’ll be eligible for a substantial Civil Service Pension scheme (including ill-health retirement and lump sum family benefits). Plus, you’ll receive a generous holiday entitlement.

About us

ONR is a Public Corporation with a Mission to ensure the highest standards of safety and security across all of the UK’s licensed nuclear sites. Our staff are drawn from a wider range of professional backgrounds in order to run a stand-alone business with specialist inspectors to deliver our core business including civil engineering, radiological protection, human factors, chemical engineering, mechanical engineering and nuclear physics. And together they’re involved in everything from assessing safety cases, inspecting nuclear sites, communicating our decisions, training new recruits and representing the UK and ONR within the wider International nuclear community.
 

Apply

To find out more and apply, visit our website.