Nuclear Future
Volume 8 issue 6 olume 9 issue 1
Replenishing critical high end technical skills in the UK nuclear sector
With over half the current workforce due to retire by 2025, the nuclear industry is facing a serious skills shortage. Graham Fairhall and Andrew Sherry outline steps that could be taken to address the problem.
loss of expertise due to retirement and the growth in jobs needed to deliver the new nuclear build programme. The Cogent data indicate that over half of the 44,000-strong civil nuclear workforce will retire by 2025. For professionals and managers/senior managers the number of retirees is higher: up to two-thirds will retire by 2025. For the planned new nuclear build programme, a peak of 14,000
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jobs will be required across all levels, with around 5000 new jobs – half at graduate level or above – needed to operate the reactors: the reactor operators of tomorrow are the school leavers of today. The nuclear industry’s skills challenge is therefore far from homogeneous. At one end of the spectrum the focus is on bringing enough
young people into STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) at school, and then – via apprenticeships, undergraduate technical courses, postgraduate research, and other routes – into the nuclear industry. However, we should not forget the challenges at the other end of the spectrum. Here we find individuals who have amassed knowledge, experience and insight over periods of some decades, each in their own specialist field. In many cases, much of this knowledge has come from participation in major national and international R&D programmes on reactor designs, fuel cycles, and so forth. To reach the status of ‘SQEP’ (a suitably qualified and experienced person) in the nuclear industry typically takes between 5 and 10 years. Technical expertise, critical for providing leadership in, for example, safety case development, requires greater experience. As ‘subject matter experts’ (SMEs) they will typically have a minimum of 10–15 years of experience – much of it at the cutting edge of their discipline.
Skills shortage Historically, R&D has been a good training ground for staff across the nuclear industry. In the past it was common practice to spend a few years in an R&D department and then move to other areas such as operations, design and strategy or to one of the nuclear regulators. Many of the senior level leaders of the nuclear industry have a background that includes R&D in their career. Whether SMEs are in industry, the National Nuclear Laboratory (NNL), academia, regulation or elsewhere, it is not possible to replace their contribution easily should they retire, leave or become unavailable for any other reason. Their skills are critical to ensuring the smooth operation of nuclear
32 Skills
ecent studies undertaken by the Sector Skills Council Cogent (Cogent Renaissance Series Reports 1 and 2) have quantified the nuclear skills challenge arising from two factors: the
plants, whether in making the safety case, confirming the safety case from a regulatory standpoint or problem solving. The availability of SMEs, across different technology areas, is
already becoming vulnerable for different reasons. For example, without intervention, knowledge and expertise in reprocessing technology will dwindle as the UK is currently set to close its reprocessing facility in six years time. Fuel technology R&D is no longer a key activity following the recent closure of the Sellafield MOX plant. Radiation damage expertise is vulnerable too, particularly since radiation science and active materials research has reduced. In some areas, the UK will need to build up the capability from a relatively low base – for instance in technology areas such as hydrogeochemistry linked to underground disposal.
Without intervention, knowledge and expertise in reprocessing technology will dwindle… Radiation damage expertise is vulnerable too
Succession planning Whatever the reasons, there is a very specific skills and knowledge transfer challenge to be met. In recognition of this, work has been undertaken to consider how best to provide succession planning for these key, highly specialised roles. One part of the solution may be to change the way we think
about R&D. In the past, many people have viewed R&D as being focused on the delivery of the end ‘product’ – which may have been underpinning the safety case for a nuclear plant, a new piece of equipment, a new technique or simply additional information. The increase in skill and insight developed in the person, or people, doing the R&D was seen as a windfall bonus. However, it is also possible to consider R&D projects from another
point of view – as being primarily designed to transfer and impart specific knowledge, skills and experience from SMEs to the next generation of people carrying out the work. The actual end product can sometimes be less critical under such circumstances, although it is clearly important to ensure it has some practical value. Skills development in this way – with a stronger focus on the
knowledge, skills and experience to be gained from undertaking R&D – is likely to become an increasingly important feature of new national programmes in nuclear energy research. There is great
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