Senior Solicitor - Commercial - Sellafield Ltd

A unique place to grow your career

At Sellafield Ltd, we are harnessing our expertise; bringing together world-class skills and innovative technology to solve complex nuclear, infrastructure, and engineering challenges. By joining Sellafield Ltd, you join an amazing team of people, from all walks of life, where you can thrive in a connected, considerate culture of innovation, collaboration, and community; and play a significant part in
the UK’s sustainable nuclear future.

About the role

The Senior Solicitor job delivers high quality, timely and accessible legal advice across a broad range of practice areas. The successful applicant will act as a trusted business partner to colleagues across Sellafield Ltd and the NDA group, providing clear, solution focused legal advice and guidance that supports effective decision making.

As a Senior Solicitor you will be involved in managing complex, sensitive and high-profile matters, lead on substantive procurements and other commercial projects and contribute to the delivery of the strategic objectives of both Sellafield Ltd and the wider NDA group. You will be working as part of a Commercial Law Team that sits within a broader legal directorate.

Key responsibilities

• Deliver high quality, timely and accessible legal advice on a broad range of commercial law matters, including contract interpretation, intellectual property, export controls, subsidy control regime to stakeholders across the business through the provision of clear, practical and solution focused options that support effective decision making.
• Review and advise on a range of contract terms and conditions, including Sellafield Ltd.’s standard contract terms, supplier terms and standard market forms such as NEC, to provide practical legal advice including on performance risk allocation, liability, and contract security.
• Advise on the legal issues associated with regulated procurement through the full contract lifecycle, which includes procurement strategies, navigating governance, reviewing procurement documentation, providing guidance and support to competitions and the evaluation and award stages and through contract management.
• Act as a trusted adviser by applying a broad range of commercial and strategic legal skills to assist the business to secure outcomes that are risk informed and aligned with business objectives.
• Undertake legal risk analysis and manage across primarily non-contentious matters, to support effective risk management and develop appropriate mitigation strategies; escalating issues to the Head of Commercial Law and/or General Counsel where appropriate.
• Build and maintain strong internal and external relationships, engaging in proactive stakeholder management to enhance the effectiveness, credibility and influence of the legal function; through the provision of clear legislative updates, guidance and training to internal stakeholders to enhance their understanding of the relevant legal obligations and how these apply to their jobs.

Your Skills and Qualifications

Essential:
• Qualified to practice as a solicitor or barrister in England and Wales with at least seven years post qualification experience relevant to the role required.
• Strong knowledge and practical experience in commercial law.
• Substantial experience of advising on regulated public procurement matters.
• Experience of working collaboratively within multi-disciplinary teams, of building strong and effective working relationships and of communicating effectively, with differing audiences, in order to influence delivery of business objectives.
• An interest in developing an understanding of the Sellafield Ltd and the NDA group missions in order to ensure effective provision of legal advice.

Desirable:
• Contentious experience relevant to the principal accountabilities of the role.
• Prior in-house experience – from public or private sector
• Experience of other legal practice areas to support the wider legal team (which could include Regulatory Law, conventional and nuclear health and safety, transport, employment law, property and planning).
• Experience of mentoring or developing junior lawyers or team members.

Why us?

At Sellafield Ltd, we are committed to supporting our employees in fulfilling their potential. With having 100 years of work in front of us, we offer comprehensive training and development opportunities, enabling you to feel inspired in your role. Whatever area you join us in, you’ll find a genuinely exciting and rewarding career.

Making sure our employees feel supported is important to us. Therefore, to help you get the most out of life in and outside of work, we also offer a range of employee benefits:
• You will benefit from an annual bonus of up to 10% – 15%, made up of company and personal performance
• An attractive defined contribution pension scheme – the company will match up to 13.5% for a 7% employee contribution!
• 30 days annual leave + bank holidays. Plus, the ability to purchase an extra 2.5 days per year.
• The ability to carry over 10 days annual leave each financial year
• Paid Sick Leave
• Family Friendly Policies – Visit our Rewards & Benefits page to read more
• Cycle to Work Scheme
• Lifestyle Benefits sasra.co.uk
• Learning & Development Opportunities https://careers.sellafieldsite.co.uk/work-with-us/learning-and-development/
• Reward & Recognition Policies
• Welfare & Employee Assistance Programme
• Free Aviva Health App & Annual Health Check
• MyDiscounts – Employee Savings & Discounts
• MyBenefits – A Charity Giving Scheme
• Many, many more! Click this link to visit our Rewards & Benefits page: https://careers.sellafieldsite.co.uk/work-with-us/rewards-and-benefits/

Sellafield Ltd is a unique place to grow your career, offering a remarkable blend of role variety, job security, personal growth, professional development, and truly significant work. This is your opportunity to tackle some of the biggest challenges in the nuclear, infrastructural and engineering worlds and create a clean and safe environment for generations to come. Explore Sellafield Ltd today.

Additional Information

• The closing date for this vacancy is Sunday 7th June 2026.

• As part of the interview, shortlisted candidates will be asked to complete additional preparation. Interviews will be conducted in two rounds with the first being held on Teams over 17th, 18th and 19th of June and the second as a face-to-face interview held at Hinton House, Risley on Wednesday 24th June

• As part of the interview you will be asked to prepare a presentation – “Your First Three Months – What does it look like and what are your measures for success? Please include your approach to your first three months, what you think you would want / need to do and how can we help you achieve that.”

• In the event of a high number of responses to any advert, Sellafield Ltd reserves the right to close the advert early. Once closed, the advert will be removed from our website. We encourage you to submit your application as soon as possible to avoid disappointment.

• As part of the application process you will be asked to provide evidence of your qualifications. Attaching them at application stage will ensure a smooth process and prevent delays.

• Please regularly check your Spam/Junk folders for news about this vacancy, correspondence could contain invitations to interview and other important updates.

• 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 ‘essential skills’ 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 be aware that this role is subject to achieving security clearance. This role requires higher level of National Security Vetting where applicants must typically have 5 or 10 years of continuous residency in the UK. Factors such as your nationality, any nationalities you may have previously held, and your place of birth can restrict the level of clearance you’re able to achieve.

Senior Solicitor – Commercial

Job number

SP06662

Profession

Legal Services

Location

Sellafield or Risley

Salary

£88,614 - £96,834

Contract type

Permanent Contract

Posting date

17 May 2026

Closing date

7 June 2026