Graduate Nuclear Waste Consultant

Company Description
**At AECOM, we’re delivering a better world.**

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**Here, you will have freedom to grow in a world of opportunity.**

We will give you the flexibility you need to do your best work with hybrid work options. Whether you’re working from an AECOM office, remote location or at a client site, you will be working in a dynamic environment where your integrity, entrepreneurial spirit and pioneering mindset are championed.

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We offer competitive pay and benefits, well-being programs to support you and your family, and the development resources you need to advance your career.

When you join us, you will connect and collaborate with a global network of experts - planners, designers, engineers, scientists, consultants, program and construction managers - leading the change toward a more sustainable and equitable future. Join us and let’s get started.

**Job Description**:
The AECOM Nuclear Waste Team provide consultancy to the nuclear industry. We provide decommissioning, radioactive waste and associated environmental consultancy to clients in the UK and abroad covering new nuclear build at the design stage through to decommissioning and environmental site restoration, which can involve:

- Operational support for UK sites such as Sellafield and Dounreay;
- Early stage development of the Deep Geological Repository;
- Review and development of waste storage and disposal facilities;
- Support to multidisciplinary design teams on defence projects.

An example UK project involved undertaking a review of selected nuclear sites to determine what their current Low Level Waste management practices are; and, what challenges they had faced, were facing or anticipate facing, with regards to them scaling up for decommissioning, recognising that nuclear sites will have built up their waste management infrastructure, often over many decades, to support their organisation’s operational activities. As sites transition from operations to decommissioning there is a shift in the quantity, type and characterisation requirements of the waste arising, and this could bring stresses on waste management capability. The project was able to pinpoint where strategies could be developed that might appropriately support nuclear sites in their waste management practices as transition to decommissioning occurs, or, as existing decommissioning activities accelerate.

An example international project is in Australia and with that nation’s proposed centralised site for Low Level Waste disposal and Intermediate Level Waste storage. We provided a technical review of the concept design documentation for the facilities and supporting infrastructure. The review provided confidence of the proposed design and identified where further design and underpinning work would add value.

Graduates commencing their careers with the AECOM are engaged into teams and paired with an experienced engineer who will guide and mentor them through the initial stages of their career whilst working on live projects. Typically these include:

- Preparation of waste inventories and the underpinning of the assumptions used to derive waste estimates;
- Undertaking literature reviews for emerging radioactive waste technologies;
- Undertaking Best Available Techniques / Best Practical Means determinations;
- Undertaking environmental aspects determinations;
- Identifying/reviewing options for decommissioning and radioactive waste practices to optimise their management;
- Preparation of documentation in support of the above;
- Develop an understanding of this highly regulated industry;
- Develop an understanding of Nuclear Safety Cases and the supporting documentation;
- Develop an understanding of nuclear site permits and licences;
- Liaison with project teams and in particular with design engineers and other environmental specialists.

**Qualifi