Sellafield graduate targets technology to attract young talent to industry
A Sellafield Ltd graduate is heading to the finals of a national competition.
Tom, a graduate radiometric physicist working at Sellafield’s Engineering Centre of Excellence, who won the Cumbria stage of a Nuclear Institute competition to reach the UK finals later this year.
One of our graduates is heading to the finals of a national competition after impressing a panel of judges with his solutions for attracting talent to the nuclear industry.
Tom Calverley, a graduate radiometric physicist working at Sellafield’s Engineering Centre of Excellence, has won the Cumbria stage of the competition to reach the UK finals.
Tom, a physics graduate from the University of Liverpool, is seconded to the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) team at the Engineering Centre of Excellence at Cleator Moor as part of Sellafield Ltd’s Graduate Development Programme.
Pete Allport, our remote handling lead, alerted Tom to the Young Generation Network of the Nuclear Institute’s competition in Cumbria as part of his personal development.
Tom said:
The competition involved giving a presentation on the topic of the nuclear industry.
I wanted to look at some of the things we can do to attract and retain talent in the industry.
Nuclear gets some bad press. If you are fresh out of university or looking for an apprenticeship you often see negative headlines.
There’s also an ageing workforce which brings a knowledge loss problem. And if you look across the entire world of the nuclear industry there’s an attrition rate of approximately eight per cent.
It’s our job as professionals to turn that around and to tackle that culture and those perceptions and ensure that we have a pipeline of young talent coming through.
Tom’s talk was titled: ‘Attract, Innovate, Retain, Repeat - the Exciting World of Legacy Facilities’ recommending that technology and innovation are put at the forefront of attracting graduates and apprentices.
Tom said:
There’s lots of exciting developments in robotics, AI, UAVs, ROVs, submersibles in the nuclear industry but you don’t necessarily see that because a lot of it happens behind closed doors. This technology gives us an opportunity to attract young talent.
During his secondment at the Engineering Centre of Excellence, Tom is providing a technical link between a radiometric group and the UAV team at Sellafield, working on a pioneering initiative so that dose surveys will be able to be carried out remotely in hard-to-reach, hazardous areas.
Tom said:
It feels like a real community here at the Engineering Centre of Excellence. Everyone helps each other and everyone has a common goal. That brings trust. There’s no such thing as a stupid question here and that allows innovation to take place which means it’s easier to get stuff done.
It’s also easier to collaborate with the supply chain in this environment. We must make use of this greater flexibility all while listening to the people working day in, day out on the nuclear facility itself – they know better than anyone what needs to be done to achieve our mission of creating a clean and safe environment for future generations.
Amanda Smith, our UAV equipment programme lead, who is working with Tom at the centre said:
I am super proud of what Tom and all the graduates are achieving. Seeing how keen they are to deliver the projects they are working on and to put themselves out there, out of their comfort zone, and for Tom to achieve an award like this is fantastic.
Tom will take part in the finals of the Young Generation Network of the Nuclear Institute’s competition during the Nuclear Week in Parliament in September 2023.