UKAEA and STEM Returners to support more engineers to return to work after a career break

The 12-week placement programme will be based at UKAEA’s site in Culham in Oxfordshire and will include roles in UKAEA’s robotics division and with UK Industrial Fusion Solutions Ltd (UKIFS) – the delivery body for the Spherical Tokamak for Energy Production (STEP) prototype fusion plant to be built at the West Burton site in Nottinghamshire. The programme is open to engineers on a career break.

UKAEA is the national organisation responsible for the research and delivery of sustainable fusion energy. UKAEA also undertakes cutting-edge work with research organisations and the industrial supply chain in a wide spectrum of areas. One such discipline is robotics, where UKAEA is designing, building and operating intelligent machines for extreme industrial environments, such as decommissioning the Joint European Torus (JET).

UKIFS is delivering STEP, a major technology and infrastructure programme that will demonstrate net energy from fusion, fuel self-sufficiency and a route to plant maintenance. UKIFS will lead STEP’s integrated delivery team with the prototype plant targeting first operations in 2040.

Research from STEM Returners (STEM Returners Index) has found that many people face challenges when returning to work following a career break, with recruitment bias against a lack of recent experience as well as gender, age and race as the main barriers to entry. For example, half (51%) of respondents said a perceived lack of recent experience was a barrier to entry, an increase from 38% in the 2023 Index and more than a quarter (26%) of women said they felt they have personally experienced bias in the recruitment process due to their gender compared to eight per cent of men.

STEM Returners’ programmes aim to eliminate these barriers by giving candidates real work experience and mentoring during their placement, as well as supporting them to adjust to life back in work.

STEM Returners, based in Hampshire, will source the candidates for the UKAEA programme and provide career coaching and mentoring throughout the paid placement. At the end of the programme, returners may be offered the opportunity to become permanent employees.

Natalie Desty, Director of STEM Returners, said:

“We are very proud to be entering this new partnership with UKAEA to return highly skilled people back into the industry they love. There is a well-known skills shortage across the STEM sector, but despite a clear need for people, professionals who have had a career break are often overlooked. Only by working together will we make vital changes in recruitment practices to help those who are finding it challenging to return to the sector and improve diversity and inclusion.”

Justin Kingsford, Chief Operating Officer, UKAEA, said:

“For fusion to be successful we need a representative workforce with a diverse range of backgrounds, lived experiences and previous career paths, all contributing to an inclusive environment which promotes creative thinking and innovation.

STEM Returners offers an excellent way for us to broaden the access into the fantastic opportunities that fusion has to offer, especially to individuals who are seeking an exciting and fresh challenge. We are delighted to launch this scheme at UKAEA and are looking forward to seeing it develop in the next few years.”

Debbie Kempton, Director of Engineering Programme for STEP said,

“Having worked with STEM Returners in the past and knowing the calibre of people they work with, I’m very excited to work with them to bring returners into the UKIFS business and STEP programme. We need all kinds of perspectives for STEP to be successful, and returners bring a wide range of views and experiences. Having come from Aerospace and Defence myself, I know that skills from other industries are both valuable and transferrable for fusion energy.”

Since STEM Returners first launched in 2017, more than 500 candidates have joined programmes across the UK. To view STEM Returners’ opportunities, visit https://www.stemreturners.com/placements/.

To find out more about robotics at UKAEA visit https://race.ukaea.uk

To find out more about UKIFS and STEP visit https://step.ukaea.uk