Fusion Industry Programme

The fusion industry is a rapidly growing industry, and more talent is needed to meet the UK’s ambitions of maintaining fusion global leadership. The Fusion Industry Programme (FIP) will aim to scale up the talent acquisition for fusion by funding industry placements each year and offering relevant and accessible careers information, advice and guidance.

Interior of JET with a superimposed plasma

For over half a century, fusion research has been almost exclusively performed by publicly funded organisations.  This has been supplemented by a significant increase in private fusion investment in recent years, clearly showing an increased confidence in making the fusion dream become a reality.

Research at UKAEA

To fully realise this goal, we must secure a thriving supply chain and talent capable of meeting the needs of a growing fusion industry.

To this end, the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) has created the Fusion Industry Programme to stimulate growth of the UK fusion ecosystem and to prepare it for future fusion powerplant markets. 

To achieve this, FIP will partner with host organisations to offer students fusion industry placements. FIP can provide funding to companies who have a short-term project (typically 8 weeks long) and would like to offer students the opportunity to gain new skills and an insight into their business.

Industry Summer Placements

UKAEA understands the benefits of providing students with work experience in the fusion industry can have to all parties.  Therefore, we are offering undergraduates in the UK the opportunity to work with members of the fusion industry for eight weeks over the summer holidays.  These placements will range from STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) to key support functions, such as, business development, procurement, finance, project management and others.

How do I apply

If you are interested, the first step is to apply to the hosts you like the sound of. If you have any questions about the scheme and how it works, please do not hesitate to contact fipsummerplacement@ukaea.uk

Affordability

To ensure that people from all backgrounds are able to commit to the placement, UKAEA provides a subsistence payment of £3,000 to each selected applicant.

Email Address: fipsummerplacement@ukaea.uk

Student placement at UKAEA

Host project placements

Atkins

  • Fusion & Advanced Reactors (FAR)

TAE Technology

  • Public policy and global affairs capacity

Woodruff Scientific

  • Project: HTS magnet design
  • Project: Workflow automation of magnet design
  • Project: Techno-economic analysis for fusion
  • Project: Artificial intelligence and surrogate model development
  • Project: FEM modeling for automated thermal calculations
  • Project: Additive Manufacturing for fusion 
  • Project: Forecasting fusion’s role in the marketplace of tomorrow

Fusion Energy Insights 

Business/Comms
  • Project: Fusion Outreach for Business 
  • Project: Fusion Projects Update for Investors

General Fusion

  • Project: Procurement and Logistics
  • Project: Diagnostics Engineering

Imperial College London

  • Project: Critical experiments to understand oxidation behaviour of tungsten

Oxford Sigma

Materials/Manufacturing:
  • Project: Making fusion materials processing accessible preparing a handbook on materials processing and manufacturing for fusion component design
  • Project: Materials selection for fusion breeder blankets
Physics/Neutronics/Reactor Design/Mechanical Engineering:
  • Project: Investigating the effect of tokamak reactor size on the quantity of radioactive waste produced 
  • Project: Maximising the energy multiplication in a fusion breeder blanket

IDOM

  • Project: Bioshield for Fusion Nuclear Reactors 
  • Project: nTopology programme Fusion applications
  • Project: Compact Fusion Reactor for Space Energy Generation

3-SCI 

  • Project: Ultra-High Temperature Electrical Distributed Sensing (UHTEDS)

Full Matrix    

  • Project: next generation of inspection equipment for energy facilities
The UKAEA team have always listened and helped with our issues where they could. It’s not just the support staff, my fellow graduates on the scheme have been instrumental to my development during my time here. We are all supportive of each other and help whenever required.
Faiz Rahman, UKAEA Graduate Mechatronics Engineer

current opportunities

Browse some of our current job vacancies below.

Director of Fusion Technology

UKAEA Culham, Oxfordshire

Director Tritium Fuel Cycle

UKAEA Culham, Oxfordshire

Equipment Scientist

UKAEA Culham, Oxfordshire

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