Senior Civil/Structural Engineer-Nuclear & Power

We are seeking a Senior Civil/Structural Engineer who thrives on being busy and having a sense of achievement at the end of each day. You want to deliver – for yourself, for the organisation and for the client.

We are looking for someone motivated and with a positive attitude who will fit into our growing team. We’d like to recruit someone who has some post-graduate experience, but we’re more interested in the skills and attitude you bring rather than time served. You’ll enjoy working closely with clients on a range of demanding issues whilst helping to mentor and train more junior colleagues in order to protect the high standards that we’re proud of.

Does this sound like you? In which case, we’d love you to apply for this role.

The role

Working within our Nuclear & Power business, our team is predominantly focused on the UK Nuclear industry. We also work closely with our colleagues on Offshore Renewables and Oil & Gas projects.

You will join a group of civil engineering professionals helping to develop technical solutions across a wide range of challenging projects. We’d like you to be flexible; you could be working on a small individual assignment or as part of a larger, multi-disciplinary team taking on some of the most complex and challenging nuclear projects in the world. Our ideal candidate would be someone who is enthusiastic, with the drive to lead and inspire our younger engineers. We’ll ask you to assist in the production of bids and proposals to our clients and we’ll expect you to help develop new work opportunities for our business.

The person

You will enjoy approaching things in different ways to find the best possible fit – you like making adjustments and playing with different approaches, trying to find the best approach to fit whatever is the current context. As soon as you’re presented with a problem, you are focused on how to resolve it, whatever it might be.

You don’t just tackle these things alone. You like to engage with others, and especially enjoy watching people develop and grow in your team. You enjoy explaining complex ideas, helping people to ‘get it’, and then watch them go on and achieve more.

We’d like you to be flexible; much of our work requires us to be based out on our client’s sites or to work collaboratively with them in their offices.

Overall, you get satisfaction from building relationships, with clients and with colleagues. You enjoy getting to know people, and working out how you can have a positive impact on them – whether that’s delivering something that a client needs, or helping someone to progress within the organisation.


In addition to having excellent communication and problem solving skills you will be able to demonstrate the following:

• Degree qualified Civil or Structural Engineer.
• Experience of working in a consultancy within the Nuclear industry or other high hazard and regulated industries.
• Chartered Engineer and a Member of ICE, IStructE, or both.
• Proven track record of excellent client engagement skills and the ability to win work.
• Experience of supervising, developing and mentoring others.
• Proven capability of leading technical aspects of civil / structural engineering projects.
• Proven design experience in areas such as optioneering, concept design and detailed design.
• Some experience of supporting construction and commissioning activities.
• Ability to manage the day to day contractual and commercial aspects of a project.
• Strong technical background, including first principles analysis as well as experience of steel and reinforced concrete design using relevant UK and international codes/standards.
• Experience of design and analysis for extreme loads such as seismic, blast and impact.
• Experience with engineering software packages including finite element analysis.
• The ability to speak French, Japanese or Chinese would be an added bonus.

The team

This is an exciting time for Atkins, our recent acquisition by SNC-Lavalin means that we are diversifying our portfolio to become a more global organisation. This promises to offer unprecedented career opportunities to our staff whilst we continue to grow our existing business units in the UK. There will be opportunities for international travel and applicants with a desire for non-UK based assignments will be welcomed.

As part of our Nuclear & Power business, our team specialises in taking on the most challenging engineering projects and opportunities that exist across the board, from technical leadership to project management. With existing relationships with the major operators in the nuclear sector, we offer a stimulating variety of work, within a team which is rapidly developing to meet the challenge of nuclear new build.

Based in Epsom, you’d be part of our wider Nuclear & Power business. We also work support colleagues working on Oil & Gas, Offshore Wind and other Renewables projects. There are excellent longer term opportunities to move around as and when projects arise that might suit your strengths and aspirations.

Additional information

Successful candidates will be required to undergo a security vetting process and offers of employment will be subject to relevant security clearance being granted.

Atkins recognise that there are many well qualified people who are looking to further their career in engineering, but who cannot commit to full time employment. We support flexible working arrangements and are interested to discuss how we can accommodate individual requirements.

Atkins develops individuals through a portfolio of training and development courses designed to help you make the best of your abilities and talents. We encourage participation in all forms of training and have an active programme of in-house and well as external training for all of our engineers.

This role may require security clearance and offers of employment will be dependent on obtaining the relevant level of clearance. If this is necessary it will be discussed with you at interview.