Digital Twin Scientist

Job Description

About us

Fusion, the process that powers the sun and stars, is one of the most promising options for generating the cleaner, carbon-free energy that our world badly needs. UKAEA leads the way in realizing fusion energy, partnering with industry and research organisations to achieve ground-breaking advancements. Our goal is to bring fusion electricity to the grid by developing the power stations of tomorrow and the skilled workforce to deliver them.

About the Job

The UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) Computing Division is at the forefront of advanced computing, delivering research, development, and specialist support to enable world-leading fusion energy research. Our expertise spans cloud computing, high performance and high throughput computing, scientific software, artificial intelligence, machine learning, exascale technologies, and data visualisation. Working alongside leading scientists, engineers, academia, and industry partners, we develop innovative computing solutions that accelerate scientific discovery and shape the future of advanced computing infrastructure in the UK and beyond.

You will provide technical leadership and mentorship while delivering innovative Digital Twin solutions that support cutting-edge scientific and engineering programmes. You'll lead projects and multidisciplinary teams, contribute to software development and technical strategy, and act as a recognised subject matter expert within UKAEA. With a high degree of autonomy, you'll collaborate across the organisation and represent UKAEA at national and international events, helping to drive the adoption and impact of Digital Twin Technologies and advanced data visualisation techniques.

We're looking for someone with:

• Knowledge of visualisation frameworks (Kitware-Paraview, Omniverse, Blender, Unity, Unreal-Engine)

• Track record of publications in Digital Twin and/or Advanced Visualisation

• Experience in Data governance, data integration, data engineering

• Skills in visualisation-relevant data formats (VTK, VTU, USD, OpenUSD, HDF5)

• Experience with CAD-relevant data formats (STEP, JT, STL)

• Knowledge of Digital twin software (Omniverse, Ansys-Twin-Builder, Siemens-NX)

• Experience with HPC and GPU architectures for graphics technologies (Nvidia RTX)

• Knowledge of Digital Threads technologies (Galaxy, Apache-Airflow)

What You’ll Be Doing

• Lead Digital Twin projects, ensuring milestones are delivered on time, within budget, and to a high standard.

• Manage and mentor a small team of 4–6 specialists.

• Collaborate with leading academic, research, and industry partners to develop next-generation Digital Twin capabilities and evaluate emerging computing technologies.

• Drive the development of innovative visualisation tools, frameworks, and workflows for scientific data, real-time analysis, AI-driven visual analytics, and high-performance computing environments.

• Develop strategic Digital Twin capabilities across UKAEA, securing research funding, influencing organisational standards, and promoting best practice through cross-functional collaboration.

What you'll Bring:

• A PhD degree in a computational, mathematical or physical science discipline, with demonstratable Post-Doctoral experience (or equivalent experience in either a commercial or research environment), relevant to the area of Digital Twin for fusion science, such as Advanced Visualisation, Digital Engineering, Data Science, Modelling.

• Recognised internationally as an expert in the field of Digital Twins for fusion.

• Demonstrable experience managing projects, budget and resource allocation.

• Track record of publishing research in the area of Digital Twins for fusion, or a similar area of research with transferable knowledge to fusion science.

• Demonstrable experience of at least one compiled programming language (e.g. C++, Fortran, C, Rust) or advanced scripting language (e.g. Python Julia, R)

• Good experience of the UNIX operating system, particularly the command line interface

• Ability to work within a diverse team, but willingness to take significant personal responsibility

• Excellent written and spoken English

UKAEA is an onsite organisation, and this role requires regular onsite presence (usually between 3-5 days in any given week) in line with business needs. We actively support flexible working arrangements where this is compatible with the role.

Benefits

We have a generous range of benefits (see the full list here) and highlights include:

• A salary of £64,820 (inclusive of a £6,500 specialist allowance)

• Up to 7% corporate performance bonus

• Final salary defined benefits pension scheme with an equivalent of 21.5% employer pension contribution

• 25 days annual leave, 2.5 privilege days and 8 Bank Holidays

• 3 days of site closure over Christmas break

• Flexible working options plus family-friendly leave provisions

Our commitment to ED&I

UKAEA's mission is clean energy for all, and we welcome talented people from all backgrounds to help us achieve this goal. We are committed to equality, diversity, inclusion and accessibility, and strive to ensure fair representation across our workforce.

Please email talent@ukaea.uk if you have any questions or require adjustments to help you participate fairly in our recruitment process, for example changes to the way we interview or share information. As a Disability Confident Employer, we are committed to providing an inclusive and accessible recruitment experience for all candidates.

We particularly encourage applications from groups currently underrepresented in STEM, including women and people from diverse ethnic backgrounds. All appointments are made on merit and further information can be found here.

Additional information

International travels for short periods of 3-5 days are typical of roles at this level, to nurtur

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