Chemistry Industrial Placement

At EDF UK success is personal. We don’t define it, you do. Join our Chemistry Industrial Placement and you’ll achieve your career goals in the way you want to. All while contributing to our mission to help Britain achieve Net Zero.

This placement is to support the EDF Chief Chemist as part of a chemistry team that provides governance, oversight, and support on chemistry across the eight nuclear power stations in the EDF fleet. This chemistry team is part of Fleet Engineering Governance & Oversight (FEGO), whose purpose is to:

• Maintain a fleet wide corporate knowledge of the plant status.
• Provide guidance and direction for assessing and managing cross fleet risks based on the safety case requirements and station lifetime goals.
• Provide technical oversight of the response to emergent plant issues.
• Ensure that the appropriate engineering policies, standards and guidance are developed, deployed and implemented.
• Ensure the engineering assets of the eight power stations are continuously managed for safety and reliability over their full life cycle.

FEGO team members are typically highly experienced scientists and engineers who have a thorough knowledge of the nuclear and power industries, plants and systems. They have a broad understanding of the business and the external and regulatory environment. As an Industrial Placement you will get the opportunity to work alongside these people gaining valuable knowledge and experience.

Pay, benefits and culture

Alongside a salary of £23,250, your package will include a range of benefits, from the big and formal to the small and personal.

At EDF, we embrace adaptability while recognising that everyone's working needs are different. Whether you're in our office spaces, on site, or working remotely, we promote an environment that supports collaboration, connection, and comfort. No matter where you are, our priority is to make sure you feel safe, valued, and celebrated.

Here, we do right by each other and everyone’s welcome. We’re on an action-oriented journey, championing equity, diversity, and inclusion. Our commitment is to have an equal gender balance, represent a broad mix of people from minority ethnic backgrounds, the LGBTQ+ community, people with a disability and colleagues from a disadvantaged background.

We’re a disability confident employer and we’ll do all we can to help with your application. Please let us know if you need to request reasonable adjustments.

We take pride in fostering a progressive and inclusive environment, where the diverse backgrounds and experiences of our team members drive fresh thinking and innovation. We understand that success means different things to different people. There’s no single definition — it's about individuality. Because success is personal.

What’s the placement has to offer

Within FEGO there are eight chiefs covering a range of technical disciplines important in nuclear power generation. This placement is supporting the Chief Chemist as part of a small FEGO chemistry team. The main area of work is in monitoring and reviewing chemistry compliance at the eight nuclear power stations. This placement, which has run for several years, provides a fantastic opportunity to work on both short-term and long-term projects focussed around delivering practical solutions to issues affecting our nuclear power stations. Chemistry control is used, applied and developed on our Nuclear Power Plants in order to support safe reliable operation. By monitoring compliance, we can seek to continuously improve our performance. The placement is office based and will include training in chemistry and nuclear power plant design and operations.

There will be opportunities to visit operating nuclear power plants as part of the work, and to gain experience of working in a power station chemistry team. There will also be the opportunity to lead on the delivery of technical work that will provide insights into the technical chemistry aspects of nuclear plant operation. There will be the opportunity to get involved with interactions between chemistry peers across the fleet and with interactions on chemistry issues between EDF and regulators.

What it involves

One of the key systems that the FEGO chemistry team supports is the Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS), used by the chemistry departments across the nuclear fleet. The successful candidate will work alongside our existing team to maintain, improve and oversee the system for the power stations. Further, the successful candidate will analyse chemistry data from the power station stations on the LIMS system to generate chemistry performance metric results that highlight the effectiveness of the chemistry programmes at each power station. Other areas of work largely depend on what the team are working on at the time. This will revolve around emergent work from the nuclear stations including (but not exclusively) items related to technical chemistry, chemical safety, data analysis, and trending related issues that could threaten the integrity of the plant.

The role will involve communication over phone, e-mail, and face-to-face meetings with people from across the fleet. Other more broad areas may include aiding in the revision of technical standards, reviews of other areas of compliance outside of our existing monitoring programmes and working with the Company’s central technical chemistry specialists. There are also opportunities for training within the company to improve universal skills and chemistry knowledge.

Your work location

You will be based within our Gloucester office; hybrid working is available during the placement period.

Who you are

We are looking for candidates who are on track to achieve, or have already achieved, a 2:2 undergraduate or postgraduate degree chemical sciences. You should possess great technical and analytical skills, along with a genuine desire to learn and develop new capabilities. A questioning attitude, good teamwork, and effective communication skills are also essential qualities we seek.

Our selection process is designed to bring out the best in you. We use a strengths-based approach, allowing you to showcase your skills and what truly motivates you. We believe that focusing on individual strengths is key to engagement, motivation, and success in the workplace.

Closing Date

We are anticipating significant interest in this role and the advert will be closed once we have received a suitable number of applications so don’t delay, apply today!

Success is personal. It’s your journey, powered by us. Join us and we’ll help Britain achieve Net Zero, together.