Interview with the Head of Engineering of newcleo

Summary

In this episode, Ed Hawkes, the UK head of engineering at nucleo, shares his journey through the nuclear engineering landscape, discussing his career path, leadership challenges, and the importance of safety, engagement, and personal growth. He emphasises the need for constructive challenge and diversity of thought in the industry, while also addressing the skills gap and opportunities for future generations in nuclear engineering.


Takeaways

Safety is paramount in the nuclear industry.
Leadership challenges remain consistent, focusing on safety and delivery.
Constructive challenge and diversity of thought are crucial.
Personal growth often comes from stepping out of comfort zones.
Networking is essential for leaders to bounce ideas and gain insights.
Reflecting on experiences helps in continuous development.
Engagement in a hybrid work environment is a challenge for leaders.
The nuclear industry is experiencing a renaissance with new opportunities.
Future leaders should embrace organic career paths and be open to opportunities.
Diversity in the workforce can bring fresh perspectives to the industry.

Creators and Guests

Guest

Ed Hawkes

Head of Engineering - newcleo

What is Nuclear Leadership Network?

The Nuclear Leadership Network was established to fill a gap in leadership development. By the time leaders hit a certain level in their path, it becomes more and more difficult to know what development steps to take to ready yourself for a shot at the top executive leadership roles in the Nuclear Industry. As you climb the ladder the number of people available to help you on your path become fewer and fewer, and your journey becomes a much more personal one. There will always be a need to collaborate with others, seek advice and guidance from those around you and take feedback from others seriously, but when you get to a certain point, you realise the more you are on your own. It’s up to you to develop yourself, through conversations, self reflection, making mistakes and being brave enough to learn from them. Not having all the answers, but being bold enough to seek the answers, is where much of that later growth in leadership occurs.

Matt Gavin (00:00)
Hello and welcome to the Nuclear Leadership Network podcast. Today I'm delighted to be joined by Mr. Ed Hawkes. He's the UK head of engineering at Nucleo. So head, brilliant to have you. How are you?

Ed (00:12)
Yeah, good, thanks, Matt. Yeah, great to be in. Yeah, thanks for having me on.

Matt Gavin (00:17)
Yeah, no problem. It's great to speak to you today. I'm looking forward to hearing about your career growth and hearing about your journey in nuclear leadership. To that point, we'd just love to kick off with little bit of introduction. Tell us where you've come from and how you've got to the position you're in today.

Ed (00:32)
Yeah, absolutely. So probably start at the beginning is easiest. yeah, mechanical engineer by background. So graduated from the University of Southampton back in 2009. Graduated into the recession, which was great timing. yeah, when I was looking for jobs, there wasn't a huge amount on the market. But ⁓ one of the places that was still doing quite a lot of recruitment was with the MOD. So joined the Defense Engineering and Science

graduate scheme through the MOD. So based down in Bristol at MOD Abbey Wood. And then within that, had the opportunity to, they just took engineering graduates in and had the opportunity to specialize in different areas. know, ships, aircraft, know, combat systems, that sort of thing. But the one area that kind of stood out to me was nuclear propulsion.

partly because of the technology, partly because things were slowly starting to get going again with the UK new build market at the time. And I thought, know, there might be a kind of long-term opportunity there. ⁓ So yeah, did the scheme for two years, got around the bazaars, so a few placements in the MAD itself, up to Rolls-Royce, which I think is where we crossed paths for the first time. it was still heavy pressure vessels still over at Symfin.

with the bars on the windows and everything else. Not the most welcoming building, but really fantastic placement. Probably the six months I enjoyed the most of the graduate scheme, actually seeing things get done and design and being involved in the design work. And then followed that up with a stint down at Devonport as well, working on what was FNF at the time, so the 14-dock refurbishments for S &T class deep fuel.

Finished the graduate scheme in 2011 and moved into a permanent role. So I had 18 months on on core production capability project looking after fuel transportation and helping out with the regeneration of the core manufacturing facilities at the Rolls Royce and Derby on the client side. And then moved across to Dreadnought and I had the best part of five years on the Dreadnought program, which was incredible. I was in the client team again looking after

Core and Heavy Vessels Manufacturer for PWR3. Brilliant project, loads going on, kind of really cutting edge stuff, really exciting. And again, you a great opportunity to get into roles, get into the PCO facility, actually seeing the kit being built. Yeah, so that was great. Yes, I did that for five years and then fancied a bit of a change of scenery. So a former colleague of mine had moved across to what was Jacobs. was, and they've been through God knows how many different.

changed the company names. was Amy Foster Wheeler when I joined, Jacob's when I left. So I had a year ⁓ on comments back into the MOD, but in main building in Whitehall. seeing things from the other side of the fence, you're still in the customer organization. ⁓ yeah, this is more of the policy making side, which again was really interesting. And then followed that up with four years doing independent nuclear safety assurance. So still part of the program.

know, helping provide advice to the Naval Reactor Plant Authorizer as sort of MOD approving authority for nuclear propulsion projects. And then I fancy something really different. towards the end of my time in that role with Jacobs, I was doing some work helping out with redesigning the sort of design authority construct and how that worked. And I happened to see a job opportunity pop up at Nucleo for design authority manager.

And you know, still a fairly new company, ⁓ three and a, just coming up to four years old actually, ⁓ developing liquid, lead-cooled, fast reactors. So completely different. No, you know, no, no technical background in LFRs that no one does really. Yeah. And a new organization. ⁓ But I thought, thought really kind of really excited by the opportunity to get involved in some new technology and getting

get involved in an organization that was still in its infancy. Because I think, know, whilst I really enjoyed my time in the defense nuclear environment, one of the challenges is you've got four or five organizations that have been doing this for 60 years, and there's some baggage that's built up over that time. So, you know, getting getting start fresh was quite exciting. So yeah, did that? Well, been doing that for nearly two years now. And then

Since April last year, I also had the opportunity to take on this UK head of engineering role. So we've got a global engineering organisation of about 350 people now. And I look after the 40 or so that are based in the UK. various things. My focus is really on our preparations to enter the generic design assessment process. Yeah, helping manage the team, providing some constructive feedback and criticism into design and

ultimately trying to ensure we develop a commercial product that's licensable in the UK. Yeah, so that's me.

Matt Gavin (05:46)
That's great. Yeah. It's interesting how your career seems to have sort of bridged the sort of, you know, old rundown buildings, bars on the windows through regeneration and into, and now into quite novel, I guess, future technology. Really interested in that. What do you think have been the sort of leadership challenges as that transitions sort of happened? And obviously continues to happen with the nuclear renaissance and hopefully the upramp in nuclear technology. How do you think that?

Ed (05:54)
Hehehehehe

Matt Gavin (06:13)
How do think the challenges for leaders have changed over that period of time?

Ed (06:18)
Yes, good question. I think the fundamental challenges are still the same. At the end of the day, it's safety. Safety is paramount. And delivery to schedule and cost. I think we've seen some of the challenges with projects like Hinckley, particularly coming through COVID as well. But I think with the nuclear and ASOMs, we've got to...

As an industry, we've got a really great opportunity to forge ahead with nuclear as part of the UK's energy mix and capitalize on the groundswell of support there is at the moment. But I think for me, the leadership challenge within that is to make sure we don't squander the opportunity. And by that, mean make sure that we do things in a safe manner, make sure we deliver on our promises in the industry, make sure we try and deliver this stuff.

to schedule and cost because there's always going to be the sort of naysayers out there and the industry is always going to be challenged because of Chernobyl and Fukushima and everything else. So I think it's really important that we show you that we're reliable as an industry and we can deliver on our promises.

Matt Gavin (07:34)
Yeah, I completely agree. think the safety record speaks for itself really, but obviously very high profile problems, challenges in its history as an industry. I think as a leader, do you see nuclear having any unique challenges? start there about cost and schedule, same as any other industry, safety, obviously, but obviously same as any other highly regulated, know, environment. What kind of unique challenges do you think there are for leaders working in the nuclear industry?

Ed (08:05)
⁓ I think, as you've mentioned there, the challenges, for me, the challenges are kind of similar to a lot of other high hazard industries. So, know, oil and gas, aerospace, et cetera, but it just kind of dialed up to 11 a little bit. And I think it does need that kind of extra special focus. I think one of the things that I've taken into this role in particular, having come from the defence environment is the sort of safety record that, you know,

the defence programme has. in the organ, you my organisation in particular, I find myself talking quite a lot about rec over. It's something I'll keep coming back to because, yeah, for a couple of reasons. think one, you know, the US Navy's got an incredible record for safety. And you look at, you know, look at the statistics, there's like 7,000 reactor years of operation they've accumulated across god knows how many different plant designs and cause or without any reactor accidents, which is incredible.

When you go back to start of that program and look at what they did, it had seven years from kicking off the program to getting a submarine to sea. And in that time, they invented pressurized water reactor technology. They miniaturized it. They built a submarine to put it in and they put that submarine to sea. And I think that's something as an industry we've kind of lost a little bit. And probably not just nuclear as well. A lot of industries, we seem to be getting much slower.

at what we do. I think coming back to your question, you know, that I think one of the key challenges for nuclear is how we kind of, how we strike that right balance between risk taking is the wrong word, but you know, kind of proportionate risk taking conscious of the levels of safety that we need to ensure. But keeping, know, keeping the programs moving forward and keeping delivering what we say we're going to deliver.

Matt Gavin (09:58)
Brilliant, they always say the safest plant's the one you never turn on, right? But that doesn't create industry. So yeah, really interesting insights. ⁓ As a leader personally, what in the nuclear industry, obviously, you know, I had a fairly long career now, probably, you know, getting to these sort of senior positions. What were the key sort of things that have shaped you, do you think, over that time?

Ed (10:01)
Yeah, yeah, exactly.

I think

What shaped me? ⁓

I think in particular that the time I had with the MOD, that five years on the Dreadnought program, I think was kind of the pivotal years of my career because I was still relatively young when I did that, when I took on that role. But it exposed me to a range of, know, a really broad range of stuff. You know, was quite a lot of technical work and discussions about, you know, well, we used to be in the same meetings about.

arguing about reserve factors on defect tolerance assessments and that sort of thing. But then through to the sort of budget management side, you know, lot of commercial negotiations with, know, between the MAD and roles, et cetera. And I think it, that time was great for me in terms of building a broad range of skills and experience that I've taken forward. I think it was also really good for me, you know, from a kind of confidence perspective.

Because personally, I've never been someone that has a kind of clear, I would say clear direction, but I've never been someone who's sort of ruthlessly ambitious. My career development has always been a bit more organic and I've liked to of the opportunities that were out there. And I think coming into that role,

was great for me because it kind of gave me the confidence to say, actually, you can do this. You can push yourself out of your comfort boundary a little bit more. And that's one of the things I found doing this role with with Nucleo because this was a really big step out of my comfort zone, moving out of defence nuclear where I'd spent my whole career into something completely new to an organisation that was still growing to a completely different technology. ⁓ to be honest, day two, I did have that kind of, my God, what have I done moment?

was really the right move. But as I got into it, I found out that I can do it. yeah, I think that's been key for me, know, finding those roles that, or continuing to push myself out of my comfort zone and find those roles that will help me develop and build new skills.

Matt Gavin (12:40)
Yeah, I love that. I think what we found through talking to people on this podcast is, you know, we've got some humans here. They might be in senior positions, but they have doubts, they have fears. They're not as polished as perhaps they perceived sometimes. And that's really nice to hear. I like hearing about that. That's how I feel sometimes, you know. And a very trendy, I guess, trending type of term is the imposter syndrome piece. How have you kind of...

Ed (12:54)
Yeah.

Matt Gavin (13:07)
battled that in terms of, obviously jumping out of your comfort zone is great and that's how you grow, but how have you battled that as a senior leader, as a focal point of a business? How do you sort of battle that lack of confidence, lack of certainty with appearing confident and appearing certain?

Ed (13:26)
Yes, it's a great question. I think different people approach this different ways. A lot of people are able to cope with that uncertainty and manage it a lot better. think other people, me particularly, find comfort in the facts. And I've always been someone who I don't like to shoot from the hip. You probably find this quite a lot with

people in the nuclear industry and engineers in particular, you know, like to forget to speak up. like to kind of, you know, have some basis for what I'm going to say. And I think that's what helped me through certainly the early stages with this role is kind of taking a little bit of time to build my, build my knowledge and understanding, you know, understand what the organization look like, understand what the technology look like.

And as I built that, I started to feel a little bit more comfortable with what was going on and the direction of travel. And then once I had that, that then helped me start to engage a little bit more forcefully in some of conversations I was having. I think the other thing that really helped with joining Nuclea was because it was still quite a small organization.

making an active effort to get out and speak to people, even just over Teams, but getting in touch with a few people just to understand what was going on, say hello. ⁓ you start to build a kind of, community is a bit, perhaps a bit strong, but you start to build a network of people in the organization who you know and they know you. again, I think that's really helpful just to have some of those. ⁓

be able to have some of those conversations just a little bit more informally to find out what's going on. think, you know, one of the things I've been reflecting on recently is ⁓ this way, you know, ways of working post-COVID and, you know, this reliance on Teams now ⁓ and hybrid working. There's much more of a barrier to those kind of informal engagements. And I think

Looking back, what I really appreciated, what I really liked, particularly when I was at the MOD or when I did that grad placement with roles was everyone being in the office. And if you didn't know something, you just pop your head up over the divider and ask someone a question or walk around someone's desk. It's much harder now. And I think it's harder for people, the grads and apprentices we've got coming into the industry, particularly when they're not in the office full time, to have that same level of engagement. And even if you're not just

Speaking to people is great, being in the office and being able to pick up on little nuggets of conversations you might not be involved in, but all that helps build your understanding as well.

Matt Gavin (16:28)
Yeah, I'd agree. I found that as well. It's interesting the challenges that leaders are going to have with this expectation of a hybrid world, ⁓ you know, and the benefits that brings, know, people, including myself and probably yourself, don't want to give up on some of that sort of benefit. But obviously then there's the flip side as to how do you get that, you know, the keyword being engagement. I think that's a really key one. It's not.

Ed (16:41)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Matt Gavin (16:51)
being present in my opinion, it's about being engaged and it's a real balancing act. Interesting, a few things you said in there that I'd just like to sort of pick up on. Engagement, I think, is the word I like to, and network, those are the two words that I picked out. You know, part of the reason that we've got this podcast and that I like speaking to different people.

as a part of it. How important do think that is for a leader? Certainly the more senior you get. How important do you think network engagement, kind of, the sort of definitely the softer side of, of a leadership rather than, you talked about hard facts before, but there's obviously a soft side to it all. How important do you think that balances to get right?

Ed (17:33)
Yeah, really important. I most people would find that the higher they get up in the organization, I mean, it's not true for everyone, but I think for most people, the higher they get up in the organization, the industry, the less it becomes about the hard technical facts and the more it becomes about the softer side of things, know, managing people, managing relationships, managing stakeholders, that sort of thing. So I think it's really important. You know, I like what you said kind of right at the outset that it can be, you

can get as you get further up the industry, can get a little bit lonely. I guess part of purpose of this podcast is about building that network. But I think it's really important, both within the organization and outside it as well, to have people you can bounce ideas off. Really lucky here that we've got one of my colleagues has been in the industry.

50 years, know, he's semi-retired, but he still comes in and does a day a week with us. And for me, that's fantastic because just being able to grab an hour with him and bounce some ideas off him, like, you know, what do you think about this? What did you do on this project? It is so useful just to to sanity check what you're proposing and what you're doing and just get a get a fresh perspective on things. And I think, you know, it comes back to one of the what I think is one of the most important things.

⁓ for the industry and for leaders in the industry is this concept of constructive challenge. And I think, now maybe I should have mentioned this earlier, but I think, yeah, that is one of the key differentiators for the industry. And something that we do really need to actively promote is building a culture of constructive challenge where people feel like they can speak up and where they see things that aren't right. And it's not just about

you know, people giving challenges about people being able to receive it as well. So I think having that strong network where, or having a network of people that you can go to, to invite challenge about what you're doing is really important.

Matt Gavin (19:38)
Yeah, I completely agree with that and creating that space, that safe space is very much a daily challenge for senior leadership. Just changing direction a little bit in the questions. So obviously as you kind of grow, you become more high profile, your role becomes more high profile, more visible, know, open to attack if that's the right phrase to use.

But obviously you talked about doubts, fears, know, all of that sort of soft stuff that even the most senior of leaders feel. How do you take the time to reflect, develop, continue to grow under all that sort of pressure and scrutiny? And how do you not just, you know, fight all day to keep the plate spinning, so to speak?

Ed (20:19)
Yeah, sorry, just a minute.

gonna do the test.

Matt Gavin (20:23)
okay.

I'll make a note what time that is then, so 21.

21 minutes in.

half past they do it then generally

to that question again, Sheila.

Ed (20:35)
Yes, that's right. Sorry. Just a couple of minutes.

Matt Gavin (20:37)
Yeah, so I mean, problem. Fairly clean. didn't happen while we were halfway through you in the flow. So that's not too bad. We can kind of definitely, definitely cut that one off.

Ed (20:52)
shape is for you isn't it?

As in for you anyway, it must be exciting times for you guys.

Matt Gavin (20:59)
It really is, yeah. mean, it's mental, it? know, we've... Careful what you wish for, I think they call it. So, fighting all this time to get some commitment and we've kind of got it now and it's... Yeah, like you say, it's all around just making sure we deliver now because I think people are looking for any excuse. You know, certainly the naysayers, like you say, look for excuses, don't they, for nuclear not to work and so don't want to give them any. So it's, yeah, pretty high pressure.

But yeah, we're growing, we're doing all the fun things, know, we're hiring people, we're building organisations, we're changing a lot, which is quite good fun. There's obviously developing, getting quite in the thick of it with GDA, which is its own learning experience, as you can imagine. They don't really know how to do this, we don't, you you said about your industry, nobody really knows what they're doing, it's all... So you've just got to...

Yeah, work hard and do your best, you? And hopefully it'll all work out. I think it will. I think there's lots of momentum behind the industry at the moment. ⁓

Ed (22:08)
Yeah, that's good. It's good that they came to the right answer as well, even if it's a wall.

Matt Gavin (22:10)
Yeah.

Yeah

Very bass now, down in Bristol still.

Ed (22:15)
Gloucester.

Matt Gavin (22:17)
Hey Gloucester. nice, nice part of the world.

Ed (22:20)
⁓ Sorry, the office is in Gloucester, I live just outside Bristol still.

Matt Gavin (22:23)
Here we go.

Ed (22:24)
There we go, sorry about that.

Matt Gavin (22:26)
So I'll ask my question again and then we can kick off.

Ed (22:28)
Yeah, clever.

Matt Gavin (22:31)
Yeah, thanks Ed. So just taking a slight diversion in the question set. I'm really interested as you get into a sort high profile position, know, all eyes are on you, the pressure increases on you, on you personally, and on your teams. How do you take the time to reflect, you know, develop, continue to hone those soft skills and your leadership's capability in sort of the face of all that pressure?

Ed (22:53)
Yeah, good question. think, actually coming back to our previous conversation, I think this is probably one of the areas where hybrid working can actually be a benefit. Because I think having that bit of quiet time out at the office, I find really useful, just particularly on a Friday. I tend not to be in, but it's great just to take a little bit time to decompress and kind of.

bit of personal debrief on the week and what went well and what didn't and what you need to carry forward. I think from a team leadership perspective, was fortunate enough to be able to put together a little bit of an away day the other week actually for my team. So we all got down to London and went to the IMechE and had the day there and that was really good. To get some feedback,

from the team in terms of what they think is going well and what isn't. And I took a lot out of that in terms of direction of travel and what we need to do as a team and what I need to do as the team leader ⁓ to help with that. think taking that time to reflect is important to understand the development opportunities, development needs. ⁓ And for me, I think that needs to be a continuous process. ⁓ It's kind of easy to default to just the

performance review cycle at work or media reviews. actually, if you're going to progress in the organization, I think, you know, it's a horrible term. People talk about leadership journeys and, you know, I think that's something that people need to bear in mind. it doesn't have to just, you you pick up learning, not just from those big kind of big events, but from some of the smaller engagements as well. And, you know, again, talked about, you know, what we talked about network and having people to bounce ideas off.

Again, I think that's a really great source of learning and ideas for things to take forward and things to develop on. I think key for me is about taking the time, finding the time to actually reflect on what's going well and what's not, and then use that to continue to think about what works well and what you need to improve on.

And that doesn't always have to be formal training. I think a lot of organizations have this sort 70-20-10 split. I think typically there's a lot you can do to work on day to day and put things into practice quite quickly. But there's loads of resources out there as well. Yeah.

Matt Gavin (25:34)
The interesting talk about resources. What, what, what, has that, how has your sort of access to resources changed over?

question is, I find in the early days when I was becoming a new leader, there's lots of training and, you know, things you can look at, you know, how to give good feedback, how to active listening, all these really good skills that leaders need. As you kind of grow and grow and grow, what does your training consist of? job training or your resources? What does that now consist of? You talk about networks quite a lot there, and I agree with that in reflection. there any other sort of learning?

mechanisms that you you employ.

Ed (26:12)
Yeah, the big thing for me, I was really fortunate enough while I was at the MAD to have the opportunity to do an MBA. So it's through Cranfield University. And that was fantastic. And I think that's probably been the biggest part of my leadership journey was the skills and experience I picked up through that. I know not everyone's fortunate enough to be able to do that. for me, it was incredible to get the sort of

the level of insight into my personality and my preferences and ways of working, which is really important. And then the kind of skill set around, you know, the sort of knowledge and knowledge you need to, I think, continue to, you know, continue to excel as you step up through the organisation. I think one thing I took from that in particular was working with a different range, a really different range of people. So the 50 of us in my cohort.

but from a really wide range of backgrounds. And I think it really dawned on me how much, ⁓ kind of how similar my ⁓ regular interactions, regular professional interactions were. Because like I said earlier, everyone's in the nuclear industry, everyone's engineers, not the cast aspersions, but people tend to be inclined in particular ways in terms of their personality. getting them, you

getting to work through problems with people from the completely different walks of life was really interesting and really, really eye-opening. ⁓ So yeah, that was massive for me. think now ⁓ there's so much out there. ⁓ I'm not the biggest fan of LinkedIn, but I think LinkedIn's really good in terms of people just

posting little things that are interesting, be it news articles or think pieces. Some of it's a bit naff, but some of it can be quite useful if you find the right resources. And things like YouTube that, certainly when I started my career, it wasn't as much of a resource, but there's loads out there. I use it quite a lot for the technical side of things because...

Someone's uploaded some videos from the super Phoenix reactor from the 1970s that talks about the fuel handling arrangements. There's this kind of quite interesting, but yeah, there's lots of other stuff around around leadership training as well. So I think having done that kind of big bang MBA, a foundation thing for me now, it's a lot more about short, sharp learning. And, you know, coming back to the previous question, we talk about kind of reflecting on, you know, reflecting on the week that's the week that's been.

For me, find that works quite well. If you pick up on something that maybe hasn't worked or hasn't gone particularly well or like to improve on going away and being able to find something that's kind of five, 10 minutes that talks about a concept or a problem that you can go, okay, yeah, maybe that helps. Maybe I can use that in the next interaction. I think it's really powerful.

Matt Gavin (29:21)
Yeah, brilliant, brilliant. And just to build on that a little bit, what skills do you think you've had to develop the most? So obviously that's quite a personal question because it depends on where your personal weaknesses were or still are maybe. yeah, what do you think you've had to work on the most? Had there been technical skills or the softer sort of side of things in terms of your leadership journey?

Ed (29:29)
He

Definitely the softer side. ⁓ think line management is a big one. And I think I might have done some brief line management training whilst it was the MOD, but it never seems to be something that... ⁓ I think a lot of people find themselves kind of thrust into management positions without any kind of formal training. yeah, kind of that's a big one.

⁓ And, you know, whilst there are training opportunities out there, I think a lot of it is dynamic, ⁓ but particularly kind of, I guess I'd encourage people to think about, you know, team dynamics and, you know, personality types as well. And that's, you know, that's not to say go and get your whole team to do personality tests, but, you know, understanding how people interact in different ways, people's preferences for tasks. ⁓

and how they all mesh together, I is really important. ⁓ Recruitment, certainly in my current role, I do a lot of recruitment. So ⁓ trying to pick up on that and find an effective way of holding interviews and getting the right information out of candidates has been something I've invested quite a bit of time on. And I think lastly,

It's

Matt Gavin (31:11)
looking on memory. Yeah, definitely. So much stuff going through the head that you forget what you were going to say. Yeah, that happens a lot to me, for sure. Obviously, people listening to this might be aspiring leaders, be wanting to go on that leadership journey, might not know whether they want to or not, might be terrified of it as well. What would be your advice to them, the young aspiring?

Ed (31:13)
Yeah.

Yeah. ⁓

Matt Gavin (31:39)
future leaders of the nuclear industry in an industry that's probably thriving more than it has done in a generation, at least. So what would be your advice to those people listening?

Ed (31:50)
So I think probably reflecting on my own personal experiences, think firstly work out what sort of person you are in terms of what you want from your career pathway. like I said earlier, some people will be super clear on what they want from their career. I want to do this role in 20 years and these are the steps I need to go through to get to that, I think.

a lot of other people probably like me treat their careers in a bit more a bit more of an organic way and just see where the opportunities take them. So I think first and foremost kind of you know it's worth figuring that out because I don't you know so yeah some approaches are right for some people some approaches will be right for other people and you know they both have benefits. I think beyond that don't be afraid to push yourself out of your comfort zone.

because I think that's where the real learning is, both technically and professionally. And for me, I've gained a huge amount. I've probably learned more in the last two years in this role than I had in the previous 13, 14, because I pushed myself out of my comfort zone, because it was something completely different. And it's forced me to think quite hard about

myself as a person, how I approach problems, how I manage teams. So I think that's key. ⁓ And within that, I think you've got to look out for the opportunities that are out there. Like I said, it's great if you have that really defined career path, but don't shut yourselves off to opportunities to go and do something different. it can be difficult, especially when you've got a

a good career with an established organisation. But those opportunities don't have to be external necessarily. don't have to say, I'm going to go and do something. I'm going leave and go to a completely different organisation. think there'll always be opportunities within your organisation. Part of that is building your network, because particularly for internal opportunities, finding

Find the right people to talk to, know what's going on in the organization, who can point you in the right direction, help sponsor you, I think is really important. Yeah, yeah, I think just keep your eyes open. I think approach everything in a positive way. I think there's always learning to be taken from whatever you're doing, be it positive or negative. Yeah.

Work hard and be nice to people. ⁓

Matt Gavin (34:42)
Be kind, I like that one. Sometimes I

forget when the pressure's on but yeah we all try. ⁓ Just to wrap us up, it's been great.

What's next? What's next for for Ed Hawks? What's next for this industry? Do you think what are the key things that are going to happen over the next number of years that are going to make or break us all?

Ed (35:02)
I mean, I think, you like you said, it's an incredibly exciting time for the industry. You know, it's great. You know, there's great opportunities for people at all levels. You like I said, at the outset, kind of when I started my career, there wasn't in the civil nuclear arena, there really wasn't much going on. know, Hinckley Point C was just about getting going, but that was about it. Whereas, you you now we've got

HPC we've got size C, we've got Rolls Royce SMR, which is great news for the industry. We've got AMRs ramping up. you know, it's a fantastic time to be in the industry. Huge range of opportunities within that for people to get involved in all sorts of different stuff, which is great. But I think the key thing for me is, you know, as I kind of said at the outset, it's about us and industry.

delivering on our promises. And one of the things I've been talking about with my team recently is about how we kind of break down what we can control, influence, and accept, say, the overall fate of the nuclear industry and how the success of our, even the success of our individual projects is almost out of our hands to an extent, but really important for us as, you know,

people involved in the industry and as leaders in the industry to focus on what we can control and what we can accept. And for me, this might be a bit of a simplistic view, but if we can do the basics really well, we can deliver on those near term milestones, start stepping through stuff. That's how you start building confidence in the industry. And for me, confidence in the industry is really important. need ⁓ to collectively seize the opportunity, again, as we said earlier.

and kind of deliver on all this promise. So I think that's my view on the overall industry. Really exciting time, I think, for people within it. Yeah, just keep an open mind. ⁓ Look at what's out there. Look at how you can contribute. ⁓ I think, you know, look at how you can bring your skills and experience to bear on some of the challenges that we've got. I think...

Yeah, kind of we need to be positive about what we're doing. We need to be champions for it because, you know, we've touched on a couple of times, but the nuclear industry does still have its detractors. And, know, I think we've got a role to play in that. I guess the other thing we haven't really touched on is the skills gap facing the industry. So this massive ramp up is, you know, fantastic, but we need to bring new people in.

And I guess that's the other key part of the nuclear leadership role is, you know, about managing the, not just about managing the people we've got, but how we manage that pipeline of resource to bring new people in, to get the future generations excited about nuclear, about a career in nuclear, allow people to see it as a long-term prospect, you know, see how exciting it can be. And I think, you know, importantly kind of help continue to build

some diversity in the industry as well and, you know, bringing some fresh perspectives. I touched on earlier about constructive challenge because it's something I'm kind of passionate about, but a key part of that for me is diversity of thought. you know, getting away from the kind of nuclear industry norms a little bit and bringing in some fresh perspective on things, you know, that can come from young engineers, can come from people with different backgrounds, you know.

neurodivergency, all that good stuff and I think yeah there's a great opportunity for us in the industry because of how much we need to grow to bring in some fresh perspectives who look at things a little bit differently and allow us to approach the challenges we've got in a slightly different way.

Matt Gavin (38:55)
Ed, it's been wicked talking to you. Thank you so much for joining us. I'm sure everybody will get a kick out of listening to that. So, yeah, thanks for all your advice. I really appreciate it. Great for me as well. So, great talking. Thanks very much.

Ed (39:07)
Yeah, that's great, Matt. Thanks for having me on again and yeah, great to catch up.

Matt Gavin (39:11)
See you soon.

Ed (39:12)
Cheers mate, thanks.

Matt Gavin (39:13)
So there you have it. That was Ed Hawkes, the UK head of engineering for Nucleo. He shared his journey through the nuclear engineering landscape and his journey to the senior leader that he's become. He discussed his career path, the challenges of leadership in the industry and the importance of safety, engagement and personal growth. I personally found that inspiring and really enjoyed listening to what Ed had to say and his answering our questions for us today, where he emphasized the need for constructive challenge and diversity of thought in the industry.

while also addressing the skills gaps and some of the exciting opportunities that lie ahead. Hopefully you all found that helpful. Hopefully that was an engaging and inspiring conversation. And please subscribe to the pod for future content. See you soon.