Commercial Procurement Manager
About the job
- MCIPS qualification or active study toward MCIPS.
- Significant experience in public sector procurement, including knowledge of United Kingdom public procurement legislation and frameworks.
- Experience leading complex, high-value procurement exercises from strategy through contract award and management.
- Strong commercial and procurement strategy knowledge across a range of procurement categories.
- Ability to negotiate complex commercial agreements.
- Ability to provide expert commercial advice to senior stakeholders and manage multiple procurement activities simultaneously.
- Lead and manage complex procurement activities, particularly information technology procurements.
- Deliver end-to-end commercial support for major projects, ensuring procurement activity aligns with project milestones and the Procurement Act 2023.
- Develop and implement procurement strategies that deliver value for money and support organisational objectives.
- Manage tendering activities, including supplier pre-qualification, tender evaluation, contract negotiation, and contract award.
- Monitor supplier and contract performance against agreed cost, quality, and timescale objectives.
- Provide commercial advice and guidance to managers and senior stakeholders across UKAEA.
- Identify opportunities to improve procurement processes and recommend practical solutions to enhance commercial performance.
- Build effective relationships with internal customers and external suppliers to achieve successful commercial outcomes.
- Ensure procurement activity complies with relevant public sector legislation and governance requirements.
- Knowledge of NEC contracts.
- Funding is available to support the CIPS development journey.
About the company
UK Atomic Energy Authority coordinates and delivers research and development to enable commercial fusion power and related technologies in the UK. It runs four facilities—CCFE for experimental fusion, RACE for robotics and remote handling, MRF for materials research, and OAS training with STFC—to advance fusion science, engineering, materials, and workforce skills. Its government-backed mandate, scale across multiple specialized facilities, and collaborations with industry and academia help translate lab findings into real-world energy solutions. The goal is to position the UK as a leader in sustainable fusion energy by bringing fusion power from the lab to commercial deployment.
Company Size
1,001-5,000
Company Stage
N/A
Total Funding
N/A
Headquarters
Clifton Hampden, United Kingdom
Founded
1954
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Simplify's Take
What believers are saying
- Government confirmed £2.5 billion for fusion RDI, with almost £2.48 billion to UKAEA.
- Sunrise launches June 2026, giving UKAEA world-leading AI compute for fusion design.
- TAE Beam UK and First Light Fusion funding deepen UKAEA's commercial ecosystem.
What critics are saying
- STEP still targets the 2040s, leaving years of capital burn before revenue.
- JET decommissioning and repurposing begins April 2026, risking costly delays and technical surprises.
- If Sunrise or partner programs slip, UKAEA becomes a long-horizon subsidy machine.
What makes UK Atomic Energy Authority unique
- Dennis Whyte joined as CEO in 2026, bringing MIT and CFS commercialization credibility.
- UKAEA controls Culham, Sunrise, and £2.48 billion through 2030, concentrating national fusion execution.
- Its TAE Beam UK venture pairs public lab depth with commercial accelerator IP.
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Benefits
Flexible Work Hours
Paid Vacation
Paid Holidays
Performance Bonus
Company News
Professor Dennis Whyte has been appointed CEO of the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority Group, taking up the role this autumn. Whyte is a co-founder of Rutherford Energy Ventures, a professor at MIT, former director of the MIT Plasma Science and Fusion Center, and co-founder of Commonwealth Fusion Systems. He will oversee UKAEA's fusion research and development, advance commercial pathways, and strengthen international partnerships as the UK works to commercialise fusion energy technologies. Whyte's pioneering work on high-temperature superconducting magnet technology transformed the commercial outlook for magnetic confinement fusion by enabling smaller, more efficient machine designs. "The world is entering a period of unprecedented energy demand," said Whyte. "Achieving commercial fusion will require coordinated efforts across governments, industry, investors, and the scientific community.
TAE Technologies and the UK Atomic Energy Authority have formally established and fully funded their joint venture, TAE Beam UK, to commercialise particle accelerator technology for fusion energy applications. The venture, operating from UKAEA's Culham Campus, will develop neutral beams, a critical technology for heating and sustaining fusion reactions. TAE brings over two decades of patented intellectual property in particle accelerator research and development, whilst UKAEA contributes 40 years of fusion energy expertise, including operation of the Joint European Torus neutral beam system. The technology also has applications beyond fusion, including food safety, homeland security and cancer treatment through TAE's biotech subsidiary. The venture expands TAE's presence in the UK and aims to establish the country as an anchor in the global fusion supply chain.
First Light Fusion has raised £25 million in the first close of its latest funding round, led by East X Ventures and Starmaker One, with significant participation from the UK Atomic Energy Authority. Existing shareholders, including IP Group, also supported the round. The UK-based inertial fusion energy company will use the capital to accelerate commercial development of its FLARE Fusion Energy concept, which aims to provide a simpler, lower-cost pathway to fusion energy. IP Group currently holds a 28.3% undiluted beneficial interest in First Light, with an additional 17.3% held via its managed funds. The investment marks a strategic endorsement of First Light's technology and its relevance to the UK's long-term energy ambitions as it advances towards scalable, reactor-compatible fusion.
The UK government is investing £45 million in Sunrise, an AI-driven supercomputer dedicated to fusion energy research, set to launch in June at the UK Atomic Energy Authority's Culham campus. The system will deliver up to 6.76 exaFLOPS of AI-accelerated modelling performance. Sunrise will combine high-performance computing with physics-informed AI models to run detailed simulations and create digital twins of fusion systems, helping researchers model plasma turbulence, develop reactor materials and advance tritium fuel breeding before conducting physical experiments. The machine incorporates AMD EPYC processors and AMD Instinct GPU accelerators on Dell PowerEdge infrastructure. The supercomputer will support UK fusion initiatives including the LIBRTI programme and the STEP project, a prototype spherical tokamak power plant planned for Nottinghamshire in the 2040s.
CERN and the UK Atomic Energy Authority have developed PipeINEER, a 3.7-centimetre-wide robot designed to autonomously inspect the Large Hadron Collider's 27-kilometre beam pipes. The robot navigates areas inaccessible to humans, where superconducting magnets operate at −271°C under high vacuum conditions. PipeINEER travels up to six kilometres on battery power, capturing images of approximately 2,000 plug-in modules that handle temperature and pressure extremes. An AI model detects deformations in radio frequency components that could obstruct the beamline. When issues are identified, the robot returns to report precise locations, eliminating the need to disassemble pipe sections for manual inspection. The robot was developed by UKAEA's Remote Applications in Challenging Environments robotics centre, applying expertise from fusion energy research to particle physics.