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Principal Mechanical Engineer

Please Note: The application deadline for this job has now passed.

Job Introduction

Job Description for Senior Mechanical Engineer:

NNL is where your solutions solve real-world problems. As part of our Engineering team, you’ll not only be able to get involved with a huge variety of projects, you’ll also have lots of opportunity to drive them through from start to finish — allowing you to see the impact your work has in a real-world environment. This is your chance to use your experience, expertise and ingenuity to collaborate with leading scientists. You’ll be part of a team that delivers work to benefit society by advancing cleaner energy, protecting the environment and keeping everyone safe.

The role of a Principal Mechanical Engineer is to lead a team of multi-discipline engineers (including sub-contractors) in the definition, implementation and delivery of specified work that achieves safety, functional and business requirements. To personally undertake some of the more complex design tasks as required and provide specialist engineering advice in the Mechanical engineering discipline.

This role can be Risley, Cheshire or Sellafield, Cumbria based with hybrid working (split between office and home working).

Role Responsibility

Main Responsibilities for Principal Mechanical Engineer:

To the Engineering Manager for:

  • Ensuring control, delivery and reporting of the specified work scope to agreed project function, cost and schedule.
  • Ensuring that design solutions are fit for purpose, integrated and optimised, affordable and meet functional specification and execution plan.
  • Ensuring functional technical, safety and engineering risks are identified.

To the Discipline Lead Engineer for:

  • Ensuring appropriate and adequate design standards and practices are deployed and deliverables and solutions generated are safe, legal and adequately underpinned.
  • Ensuring competent, SQEP people are deployed in functional work and periodic forecasting of resources are accurate and timely.
  • Ensuring that appropriate design review activities are performed in a timely manner.
  • Ensuring subject matter experts are appropriately and adequately engaged in a timely
  • Manner and LFE captured, disseminated and utilised.

To Head of Engineering for:

  • Ensuring solutions meet agreed performance demands and documents define and preserve the design intent and are organised and align with the plant configuration.
  • Ensuring all necessary documentation is generated to meet safety and legal requirements that enable receipt on nuclear licensed site, installation, commissioning and taking into service of plant and equipment.

The Ideal Candidate

Essential criteria for Principal Mechanical Engineer:

  • Qualifications:
    • Minimum – HNC.
    • Preferred – MEng (Hons).
  • Professional Membership:
    • Minimum – Incorporated Engineer.
    • Preferred – Chartered Engineer and Fellow.
    • NOTE: For both levels of registration, equivalent experience can be offered in lieu if it is deemed appropriate by the Discipline Lead Engineer.
  • Experience:
    • Extensive experience in engineering design. In addition, will have extensive recent experience working in regulated and quality assured systems in roles where engineering judgement is a key attribute.
  • Ability to obtain SC level security clearance (this includes but is not limited to identity, employment, financial and criminal record checks plus 5 years’ worth of UK residency).


Desirable criteria for Principal Mechanical Engineer:

  • Nuclear experience with background in alpha containment design and incell nuclear operations.

About the Company

Grounded in robust science and decades of experience, National Nuclear Laboratory (NNL) is the authoritative voice in the UK and beyond for technological development within the nuclear power sector.

Our unparalleled understanding of the science, challenges and opportunities makes us an unrivalled authority and partner in the field, providing experts, technologies, and access to cutting-edge facilities to organisations around the world.

Harnessing potential technologies and translating them into to industry-ready solutions means our pioneering approach spearheads international improvement and technological progress.

We work on projects as small as drilling a hole to analyse underground wastes with our integrated micro drilling technology, or as large as developing state-of-the-art power systems for spacecraft, based on radioactive materials

NNL has a vision for Equality, Diversity and Inclusivity (ED&I) where NNL aims to be an inclusive workplace that attracts diverse talent through transparent and equal policies and procedures. We want you and the diverse mix of people that we employ, customers that we service and stakeholders that we influence to feel valued. We encourage a workplace culture where everyone can thrive with a sense of belonging.

Recruitment Agency Notice

We operate a strict Preferred Supplier List (PSL) for the provision of recruitment services. Only agencies on our PSL may provide CVs and only when the role is released to them by our recruitment team. We will not accept unsolicited CVs from suppliers not currently on our PSL. We explicitly reserve the right to add candidate details from unsolicited CVs from non-PSL agencies into our own candidate database and to pursue/hire such candidate(s) without any obligation, financial or otherwise, to the agency concerned.

National Nuclear Laboratory

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