Graduate Mechanical Design Engineer - Graduate Scheme 2025

By 2050, the planet could be using twice as much electricity compared to today. Are you interested in contributing and helping to shape the future of the world’s energy? If so, read on.

Fusion, the process that powers the Sun and Stars, is one of the most promising options for generating the cleaner, carbon-free energy that our world badly needs.

UKAEA leads the way in realizing fusion energy, partnering with industry and research for ground breaking advancements. Our goal is to bring fusion electricity to the grid, supported by tomorrow's power stations. In pursuit of our mission, UKAEA embraces core values: Innovative, Committed, Trusted, and Collaborative.

As an employee of UKAEA you will benefit from:

• Outstanding defined benefit pension scheme, details of which can be found at the end of this advert.
• Corporate bonus scheme up to 7% and a Relocation allowance (if eligible).
• Flexible working options including family friendly policies and the right to request flexible working from the start of your employment. 
• Employee Assistance Programme and trained Mental Health First Aiders, 
• Generous annual leave allowance starting with 25 days, plus 3 days Christmas closure and 2.5 privilege days, in addition to UK bank holidays
• Wide range of career development opportunities
• A vibrant culture committed to equality and being fully inclusive

This role is potentially hybrid, but as it is a developmental role, we encourage all our Graduates to be onsite as often as possible, especially during the first few months.

The salary for this role is £32,729.

This role requires employees to complete an online Baseline Personnel Security Standard (BPSS), including The Disclosure & Barring Service (DBS) checks for criminal convictions.

UKAEA’s two-year graduate scheme is split by 80% of your time developing both your general work-related skills and professional qualifications and 20% of your working time dedicated to graduate training and development.  Within the graduate training and development, there is a core suite of activities designed to develop your professional and business skills. Elements of this programme are flexible and can be tailored to your personal development needs and to those of your specific job role. 

The Role

Are you looking for an exciting opportunity to make a difference? Join our team and contribute to the future of fusion energy. As Graduate Mechanical Engineer, you will play a pivotal role and do a variety of engineering tasks designed to provide experience & familiarization with staff, methods, practices, & programs of the organisation. This may include, operating, maintaining & demonstrating equipment. The role holder will be expected to manage their own development continuously working towards building their knowledge & skills.

• System Analysis
• Design & Review
• Procure & Commission
• Operational Analysis
• Support the repair and recovery of existing equipment
• Report
• Plan & Coordinate
• Support Business Development

Additional Responsibilities:

System analysis: 

• Remote compatibility & design assessments 
• Requirements capture 
• Market & technology surveys

Design & Review:

• Writing functional specifications 
• Concept generation & selection 
• Preliminary design and component selection 
• Structural, thermal, kinematic, fluid flow & vibrational analysis’ 
• Integration 
• Peer review 
• Detailed design & drafting 

Procure & Commission:

• Co-ordinating the procurement ensuring value for money and budget compliance. 
• Developing & writing assembly procedures & testing and commissioning procedures.  
• Identifying key quality requirements and creating corresponding inspection documentation in line with UKAEA 
• Monitoring progress and quality of both sub-contract and in-house manufacturing & assembly ensuring compliance to UKAEA site standards 
• Identifying manufacturing non-conformances and discuss them with the associated stakeholders. 
• Arranging or enacting inspection by relevant departments. 
• Commissioning & trouble-shooting hardware builds 
• Signing off completed work packages 
• Writing maintenance and operator manuals 

Operational Analysis:

• Working with the VR Engineer to create simulations demonstrating the feasibility and efficiency of operations  
• Operational Sequence descriptions  
• RAMI analysis  

Support the repair and recovery of existing equipment:

• Analysing faults on equipment based on design information and anecdotal accounts of the failure form operational team. 
• Determining and managing a methodical approach to problem diagnosis 
• Identifying and agreeing appropriate corrective action in consultation with operational team and equipment experts. 
• Organising and oversee corrective action 
• Ensuring appropriate design files are updated and spare stock replenished. 

Report:

• Reporting work and results back to customer in project defined way 

Plan & Coordinate: 

• Planning work programs and projects 
• Coordinating, instructing and enabling assisting staff in execution of project work 

Support Business Development:

• Generating work proposals base on tender specifications and customer and bid team discussions 
• Estimating resource effort and hardware costs 
• Delivering conference presentations and publishing paper 

Essential Requirements:

• Recognised suitable engineering degree 
• Demonstrates a good understanding of engineering principles and how they a can be applied. 

Other Duties:

• Engineers may be required from time to time to enter radioactive controlled areas to support the diagnosis and execution of corrective action on JET equipment. Appropriate PPE and training will be provided in advance. 
• Engineers may be requested to be on call to support operations. 
• Engineers may be required to travel and work offsite in support of UKAEA project responsibilities and maybe temporarily co-located with our business partners. 

A full list of our benefits can be found here https://careers.ukaea.uk/life-at-ukaea/employee-benefits/

We welcome applications from under-represented groups, particularly individuals from black and other ethnic minority backgrounds, people with disabilities, and women. Our Executive team, supported by our 'Equality, Diversity and Inclusion' (EDI) Partner and Inclusion Ambassadors, actively promotes EDI and takes steps to increase diversity within our organization. We reinforce best practices in recruitment and selection and evaluate approaches to remove barriers to success.

Please note that vacancies are generally advertised for 4 weeks but may close earlier if we receive a large number of applications.