Report on Human Resources needs in Research, Safety and Waste Management

Nuclear power and non-power technologies are technically very complex facilities that operate in increasingly challenging regulatory frameworks and market conditions. The global nuclear industry faces many technical and political challenges but sourcing sufficient workers may be its biggest obstacle. The nuclear sector relies heavily on a specialized and highly trained workforce for its safety and sustainability.The work of the task force has demonstrated that it is very difficult to get precise data on the nuclear workforce through European wide surveys. A national Nuclear Workforce Assessment (NWA) can be an important tool for establishing comprehensive understanding of current and future human resources demands, understanding the supply of skills and competences, identifying possible gaps between supply and demand, and establishing an action plan with remediate measures. According to our research the direct workforce for the EU27 + UK in nuclear Research and Development, Regulation and Decommission and Waste Management are estimated around 52,500 jobs, with the following distribution:
● Nuclear R&D (incl. TSO’s and research reactors): 22,500 jobs
● Nuclear Decommissioning and Waste Management: 25,000 jobs
● Nuclear Regulators (safety and security): 5,000 jobsIndirect jobs supported through the supply chains are assumed to be similar in number, bringing the total to over 100,000 jobs. To sustain current operations, these sectors will require over 30,000 additional jobs by 2036 just to compensate for retirements. Results from the survey indicated diverse opinions regarding the most in-demand nuclear jobs in the next ten years. However, the top five disciplines reported were:
● decommission and waste management,
● radiological protection,
● nuclear engineering,
● (nuclear) physics,
● medical application.Demand for specific nuclear jobs may vary across European countries due to variations in energy policies, public health policies, and nuclear capacities. Nevertheless, the afore mentioned disciplines are generally expected to be high in demand as Europe continues to tackle its energy needs, public health policies, nuclear safety, and waste management challenges.The demand for clean energy, the increased range of non-power applications, as well as long term perspectives related to nuclear fusion and the ITER project, are likely to ensure that the nuclear sector as a whole will continue to evolve and expand over the next ten years and beyond. However, such increase is likely to vary in the different nuclear subsectors, depending on national policies and programmes. It should be stated that this report does not cover human resources needs necessary for the development of the European nuclear fusion activities.A full understanding of the workforce size, its needs in terms of competences and possible mitigating measures can only be established through involvement of all relevant stakeholders (ministriesresponsible for nuclear programmes, industry organizations, regulatory authorities, technical safety organizations, research and training infrastructures and academia).Nuclear energy will continue being a backbone of the electric generation in Europe. Despite the phasing out policy followed by some EU countries, nuclear energy is considered in many countries as quiteimportant and a clear asset to achieve the goal of net zero carbon emissions beyond 2050. Therefore, strong commitments have been undertaken by 11 countries to accelerate the development andconstruction of new nuclear power plants. These new reactors are designed with extremely high safety features and an expected lifetime exceeding 60 years. In those countries, R&D centres and institutionalas well as industrial support have indicated their intention to increase their human resources and skills in nuclear. Countries that have decided to phase-out nuclear energy will have nonetheless to deal withdecommissioning, dismantling and waste management issues with the appropriate human resources.