Job Purpose

The Head of Environmental Management and Standards sets the enterprise strategy, governance and assurance framework for environmental management, ensuring Sellafield Ltd maintains compliant and robust arrangements that support safe mission delivery.

They provide specialist leadership and oversight to ensure environmental risks are controlled, regulatory expectations are met and performance improves, holding functional authority for environmental standards and performance insight.

Working alongside the Head of Core SHEQ Services, the postholder provides technical advice, specialist environmental support services and expert advice to operational delivery organisations and represents Sellafield Ltd as the senior environmental authority in engagements with regulators, the NDA, industry bodies and the public.

The Head of Environmental Management and Standards provides environmental governance and assurance to the SHEQ Director, supporting their executive and board level accountabilities for safe site operation and effective stewardship of environmental risks.

The role holder is an advocate for “creating a clean and safe environment for future generations”; and actively drives the Environment pillar of Sustainability.

Principle Accountabilities

• Set the enterprise-wide strategic approach for environmental safety, ensuring robust, compliant and forward looking arrangements. Own and shape the Sellafield Environmental Policy.

• Lead and manage specialist SHEQ environmental disciplines, including permitting and controls, technical assessments, off-site environmental (e.g. beach) monitoring, and process and Implementation, ensuring expert capability and technical standards.

• Direct specialist environmental support and advisory services, through the Head of Core SHEQ Services, ensuring operational delivery organisations receive authoritative technical advice and guidance.

• Provide enterprise level environmental leadership and oversight, challenging and intervening where necessary to prevent degradation of environmental standards.

• Act as Process Owner for key environmental domains (e.g. environmental management, waste), including associated Licence Condition arrangements. Maintain continued ISO 14001certification.

• Own and actively manage corporate‑level environmental risks, ensuring robust mitigation, escalation and clear enterprise visibility.

• In collaboration with the Head of Regulatory Interface and Nuclear Safety, Lead enterprise‑level environmental regulatory engagement to ensure proportionate and effective interactions with regulators and government bodies.

• Maintain horizon scanning for environmental management to influence regulation development and ensure SL implementation. Benchmark environmental arrangements and performance against national and international good practice, driving the adoption of emerging standards and insights.

• Strengthen the organisation’s environmental culture by shaping and embedding ‘fit for context’ environmental practices across the enterprise, ensuring expectations are clearly understood, consistently applied, and reinforced through the SHEQ Lead Team’s collective leadership.

• Deliver SHEQ improvement objectives and targets, ensuring effective corrective action programmes are identified and implemented based on gaps in regulatory compliance and relevant good practice.

• Lead and develop a collaborative, high‑performing environmental team that embeds environmental professionalism across the enterprise and maintains environmental capability. Own the Environmental Training Programme and define SQEP requirements for key appointed roles.

As a member of the SHEQ Lead Team:

• Ensure a positive SHEQ culture is established and maintained, with SHEQ considerations remaining central to decision‑making;

• provide vision and leadership to drive continuous improvement against company objectives, standards and key SHEQ performance indicators;

• Set direction, goals, targets and priorities for SHEQ personnel, delegating authority appropriately.

• Establish consistent working arrangements within the Environmental Management and Standards team aligned with the management system, ensuring effective compliance.

• Ensure team resources maintain strong networking and consultation relationships across the SHEQ Directorate (SHEQ Lead Team), work within the limits of their competence, and provide effective advice and support within their areas of responsibility.

Knowledge, Skills & Experience

• Degree qualified in a relevant STEM discipline (or equivalent experience), supported by recognised professional environment or SHEQ accreditation (e.g., Chartered status, Fellowship or equivalent).

• Extensive senior leadership experience and expertise in environmental safety within the nuclear sector or comparable high‑hazard industries, with deep understanding of environment challenges across design, operations, 7hazard reduction and decommissioning.

• Strong professional credibility and technical authority in environmental management, with the ability to interpret regulatory and environmental requirements and translate them into effective operational and project delivery through influence and collaboration.

• Proven strategic capability to shape, develop and implement environmental policy within complex organisational, regulatory and political environments.

• Highly experienced in engagement with regulators, industry peers, government bodies and senior stakeholders, with the ability to support operations and projects in delivering mission objectives.

• Exceptional interpersonal and influencing skills, with the gravitas, resilience and political acuity to build trust and maintain productive partnerships across the nuclear industry.

• Strong communication and stakeholder management capability, able to articulate complex environmental issues clearly and credibly at Executive, Board and regulatory levels, and constructively challenge where required.

• Demonstrable experience of industry‑wide engagement and adoption of good practice, contributing to sector‑level learning and consistency in environmental performance and standards.

• Balanced leadership style, combining strategic vision with hands‑on delivery, and a track record of developing high‑performing specialist teams.

• With the strategic capability to both shape and enable implementation of environmental policy, the role holder carries personal credibility and respect amongst senior leaders and peers.

Additional Information

• Open VN
• Number of Vacancies: 1

As part of your application, please include a cover letter detailing how you meet the knowledge and experience required for the role.

The date of the interviews for this position will be confirmed in due course.

If you choose to apply for this role and your application is shortlisted, you will be invited to an interview. In the interview, you will be assessed against the NDA Leadership Standard.

Sellafield Ltd are recognised as a Disability Confident Employer (Level 3). Disability Confident employers offer an interview to disabled applicants that meet the minimum criteria for a vacancy. Sellafield Ltd define the minimum criteria as the ‘knowledge, skills & experience’ which are listed on the vacancy notice. Whilst completing your application form, you will be able to indicate if you wish to be considered under the disability confident scheme. If you would prefer to discuss this directly with us, please contact the GBS Recruitment team on recruitment@sellafieldcloud.co.uk

Please ensure that you save a copy of this advert for future reference if you make an application for this role.

The closing date for this vacancy is Wednesday 29th April 2026.