Clean Energy Partnership Manager
The HPC Jobs Service supports local people into exciting, long-term careers across our Project.
Clean Energy Partnership Manager
UCS Group
Salary: £46,905 to £51,422 per annum
Working Hours: 37 hours per week, all year round, Permanent
Job Purpose
Hinkley Point C is the largest and most complex construction project in Europe — the first new nuclear power station built in the UK for a generation — and UCS College Group is its leading skills delivery partner. That partnership, built over more than a decade of trusted collaboration with EDF Energy, its Tier 1 contractors and the wider supply chain, has grown into a portfolio of unique, business-critical services delivered at the very heart of a nationally significant infrastructure project.
At the centre of that portfolio sit the Centres of Excellence — the Mechanical, Electrical and Welding facilities for which UCS acts as Managing Agent on behalf of the client. These are not conventional college workshops. They are industrial-grade facilities operating to exacting client, regulatory and international quality standards, de-risking the HPC project and providing the skills and competency based services on which the project's workforce mobilisation depends. Around them sits a wider set of services that are woven into the project's onboarding, workforce assurance and compliance
arrangements — services a college would not normally be asked to provide, entrusted to UCS because of the reputation we have earned.
The Clean Energy Partnership Manager is the person who makes all of this work, every day. This is our front face into the HPC project: the trusted, visible, always-on interface between the client, the Tier 1 contractors, their supply chains, third-party training providers and the full breadth of UCS College Group. The post-holder leads a small, dedicated team; sits within the project's governance and working groups; holds a hot-desk within the project offices themselves; and carries personal accountability for ensuring that every service we deliver into HPC is safe, compliant, commercially sound and of a consistently exceptional standard.
This is a role of genuine consequence. The environment is fast-paced, high-profile and demanding and the post-holder must thrive in it: reading situations astutely, managing sensitive relationships, protecting and enhancing the reputations of both the College and the project, and spotting where UCS can add further value as the project's needs evolve. Sitting within the TEC Engine — the coordinating heart of our South West Clean Energy Technical Excellence College — the role
connects our flagship nuclear partnership into the College Group's wider clean energy mission: ensuring that the capabilities, standards and relationships built through HPC contribute to the project's lasting skills legacy across the region and the wider clean energy sector, and supporting the Assistant Director: Clean Energy TEC in the successful implementation of the TEC. While the HPC partnership will command the substantial majority of the post-holder's time and focus, contribution to the wider TEC is a defining expectation of this role, not an optional extra: the expertise developed at the sharp end of Europe's largest construction project is precisely what the TEC needs, and the post-holder will be expected to step across and apply it where it can make the difference. It offers an exceptional platform for someone who wants to operate at the meeting point of industry, education and national infrastructure.
Key Responsibilities
1. Client Partnership and Account Management
To act as UCS College Group's principal day-to-day interface with the HPC client, Tier 1 contractors and their supply chains — building and sustaining relationships of deep trust, managing the partnership as a strategic account and ensuring that every interaction reflects the standards, values and responsiveness on which our reputation is built.
To participate fully and proactively in HPC project governance groups, working groups and local liaison structures — representing the College credibly and constructively, advocating for the College and the project to each other's organisations, and facilitating the solutions the project needs as its requirements evolve.
To maintain a visible, embedded presence within the project — including at the HPC project offices — anticipating emerging client and contractor needs, listening carefully to what the project requires next, and ensuring UCS is positioned to respond quickly, credibly and to a high standard as new requirements emerge.
To manage sensitive situations, competing interests and reputational risk with judgement, discretion and emotional intelligence — recognising the local, regional and national profile of the project and the care required in navigating its many stakeholders.
To host invited guests, delegations and VIP visitors to the Centres of Excellence and the wider skills partnership, professionally and positively representing the skills response to and by HPC — and the wider clean energy opportunity it anchors for the region.
2. Service Delivery and Operational Leadership
To lead the effective delivery of the Managing Agent contract and the full portfolio of services UCS provides into the HPC project — ensuring facilities, systems and processes provide a slick, simple and dependable interface for the client, contractors and their workforces.
To manage the operation and utilisation of the Centres of Excellence, implementing efficient systems that align with client and College requirements, uphold all regulatory, quality, health & safety and safeguarding obligations, and deliver an outstanding customer experience at every intervention.
To manage the professional and collaborative accommodation of third-party training providers commissioned by HPC contractors to deliver within the Centres of Excellence — establishing clear protocols, protecting quality and safety standards, and maintaining the constructive, open relationships that make shared delivery work in a college environment.
To troubleshoot day-to-day challenges at pace, anticipating and resolving issues before they escalate, and keeping delivery on track within a relentlessly fast-moving major project environment.
To lead the data management and reporting requirements across the portfolio, using digital platforms to give the client, the College and governance groups clear visibility of performance, utilisation and impact.
3. Quality, Compliance and Assurance
To ensure that all services delivered under the partnership meet the elevated safety, quality, technical and compliance standards the project demands — including internationally recognised industrial quality management standards, safety-critical technical testing and assessment regimes, and workforce compliance programmes that form part of the project's onboarding and assurance arrangements.
To ensure the College's approved centre registrations, awarding and industry body requirements and quality assurance obligations associated with the partnership are managed rigorously — including the oversight and assurance of delivery undertaken by partner organisations under the College's approvals, where the College carries the audit and reputational risk.
To prepare for and manage external audits, inspections, surveillance visits and contract reviews confidently and thoroughly, ensuring consistently positive outcomes and that essential services to our HPC partners are never compromised.
To work closely with College quality, compliance and curriculum teams to ensure that specialist delivery — including provision delivered through other College departments as part of the partnership portfolio — is coordinated, compliant and of a consistently high standard.
4. Commercial and Contract Management
To lead the management of the contract for services with the client — executing all associated budgeting, financial management, procurement, invoicing, reporting and contract administration responsibilities accurately and transparently, and ensuring the College meets its obligations in full.
To deliver the income and contribution targets associated with the portfolio, managing the revenue streams that sustain staffing, maintenance, equipment, materials and the continuous improvement of facilities and services.
To identify where UCS can add further value to the project as its needs evolve — bringing forward well-judged proposals, developed collaboratively with the client and contractors, that strengthen the partnership and extend the benefit it delivers to the project, the College and the wider community, including the project's ambition to leave a lasting skills legacy in the
region.
To plan ahead across the life of the contract — understanding the project's phasing and workforce trajectory, and ensuring the College's services, facilities and capacity develop in step with what the project will need next.
5. Team Leadership and College Connectivity
To lead, manage and inspire the partnership delivery team — motivating and developing staff to reach their full potential, ensuring efficient deployment, applying all College policies and procedures, and building a culture of pride, ownership and continuous improvement.
To act as the connector between the HPC partnership and the wider College Group — building strong working relationships across curriculum and support services, so that the full capability of the College can be mobilised quickly and reliably in service of the partnership.
To work with College and project communications teams to ensure regular, approved PR, case studies and communications that celebrate the partnership's impact are created and published.
6. The Clean Energy TEC and the HPC Skills Legacy
To work as an active member of the Clean Energy TEC Engine team, supporting the Assistant Director: Clean Energy TEC in the implementation and successful delivery of the Clean Energy Technical Excellence College. Specific TEC responsibilities and relationship briefs will be agreed with the Assistant Director through the College's objective-setting processes, and
planned carefully so that the delivery of HPC services is never compromised.
To bring the expertise honed through the HPC partnership — deep relationship management, the identification of opportunity, the collaborative crafting of mutually beneficial solutions for industry partners and the College, disciplined data and impact reporting, and the enhancement of the College's reputation in the eyes of industry and government — into
designated relationships and workstreams across the wider clean energy sector, helping to make the right things happen as the TEC grows.
To work within the Clean Energy TEC's coordinating structures, ensuring the HPC partnership is connected into the TEC's wider strategy, intelligence and reporting, and that the lessons, standards and relationships built at HPC strengthen the College Group's broader clean energy mission.
To champion the skills legacy of the HPC project — ensuring that the facilities, capabilities and partnerships built through the project deliver lasting benefit to the region and the wider clean energy sector, as one of the project's enduring contributions.
7. Governance, Compliance and College Citizenship
To ensure all activity complies with the College's financial regulations, commercial and procurement policies, contractual obligations and data protection requirements.
To exemplify College and project values in your day-to-day work and instil these values in your team and in all partners using the Centres of Excellence.
To participate actively in the College's performance management processes, including appraisal and CPD, and to contribute to the wider life of UCS College Group in a way that reflects its values and culture.
To support and promote the safeguarding and Prevent agendas, equality and diversity commitments and the wider values of UCS College Group in all aspects of your work, reporting concerns through appropriate channels.
To carry out campus Duty Manager duties on a rota basis, and to undertake any other duties commensurate with the seniority of the post, as agreed with the Assistant Director: Clean Energy TEC.
Qualifications, Skills, Knowledge and Qualities
At UCS College Group we are passionate about learning, responsive to learner, employer and community needs, always aspiring to the highest standards, professional and enterprising, innovative and creative, inclusive, team-oriented, and friendly and welcoming. The successful candidate must share these values fully.
Essential Criteria
Significant experience of managing a strategic client account, major contract or complex partnership in a demanding, multi-stakeholder environment — with clear evidence of building deep trust, sustaining performance and growing the value of the relationship over time.
Proven operational management experience of training, assessment, testing or technical facilities — including responsibility for systems, utilisation, health & safety and customer experience.
Demonstrable experience of working within quality, compliance or audit frameworks — including preparing for and managing external audits or inspections, and maintaining certifications, approvals or registrations on which delivery depends.
Strong commercial and financial management skills — including budget management, contract administration, procurement, reporting and the delivery of income and contribution targets.
Outstanding stakeholder management and interpersonal skills — with the emotional intelligence, discretion and political sensitivity to navigate a high-profile environment with many competing interests, and the judgement to protect and enhance organisational reputation.
Excellent communication and influencing skills — confident and credible with senior client representatives, contractors, industry bodies and internal colleagues alike; able to adapt style and register across a wide range of audiences.
Experience of managing, motivating and leading a team to achieve targets and objectives, with a genuine commitment to developing people.
The ability to work effectively across organisational boundaries — building the internal relationships and connectivity needed to mobilise colleagues, departments and services quickly in support of external commitments.
Resilience, pace and adaptability — comfortable operating in a volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous environment, with a
flexible, pragmatic and solutions-focused approach to problem solving.
A passion and energy for delivering a first-class customer experience, with the tenacity, flair and creativity to keep raising the standard.
A genuine enthusiasm for the clean energy agenda and for the role that skills play in the region's energy transition — with the ambition to see the impact of our major project partnerships extend across the wider sector.
The versatility and willingness to apply their expertise beyond a single client or project — stepping across into wider institutional priorities, including the Clean Energy TEC, and contributing wherever their skills can make the difference.
Strong IT and data skills — confident using digital platforms for reporting, performance analysis and communication.
Full UK driving licence — the role requires regular travel between College campuses, partner facilities and the HPC project, and occasionally to wider clean energy partner sites across the region.
Desirable Criteria
Direct experience of working within or alongside a major infrastructure project, nuclear or other highly regulated industrial environment — with an understanding of the standards, cultures and pace such projects demand.
Working knowledge of industrial quality management standards, technical testing and assessment regimes, or workforce compliance and competence assurance arrangements.
Knowledge of the wider clean energy sector — including nuclear, offshore wind, electricity networks, battery energy storage or lowcarbon construction — and its emerging skills demands.
Understanding of the Further Education and skills landscape — including apprenticeships, funding streams, awarding organisation requirements and employer-facing provision.
Experience of hosting high-profile visits, supporting communications activity or representing an organisation publicly.
A relevant management or professional qualification (e.g. CMI, ILM or equivalent).
For this role you must have evidence of right to work in the UK. As a project, we do not discriminate on the grounds of age, gender, race, colour, religion, disability or sexual orientation, and we welcome applications from all sections of the community.
The HPC Jobs Service supports local people into exciting, long-term careers across our Project.
Clean Energy Partnership Manager
UCS Group
Salary: £46,905 to £51,422 per annum
Working Hours: 37 hours per week, all year round, Permanent
Job Purpose
Hinkley Point C is the largest and most complex construction project in Europe — the first new nuclear power station built in the UK for a generation — and UCS College Group is its leading skills delivery partner. That partnership, built over more than a decade of trusted collaboration with EDF Energy, its Tier 1 contractors and the wider supply chain, has grown into a portfolio of unique, business-critical services delivered at the very heart of a nationally significant infrastructure project.
At the centre of that portfolio sit the Centres of Excellence — the Mechanical, Electrical and Welding facilities for which UCS acts as Managing Agent on behalf of the client. These are not conventional college workshops. They are industrial-grade facilities operating to exacting client, regulatory and international quality standards, de-risking the HPC project and providing the skills and competency based services on which the project's workforce mobilisation depends. Around them sits a wider set of services that are woven into the project's onboarding, workforce assurance and compliance
arrangements — services a college would not normally be asked to provide, entrusted to UCS because of the reputation we have earned.
The Clean Energy Partnership Manager is the person who makes all of this work, every day. This is our front face into the HPC project: the trusted, visible, always-on interface between the client, the Tier 1 contractors, their supply chains, third-party training providers and the full breadth of UCS College Group. The post-holder leads a small, dedicated team; sits within the project's governance and working groups; holds a hot-desk within the project offices themselves; and carries personal accountability for ensuring that every service we deliver into HPC is safe, compliant, commercially sound and of a consistently exceptional standard.
This is a role of genuine consequence. The environment is fast-paced, high-profile and demanding and the post-holder must thrive in it: reading situations astutely, managing sensitive relationships, protecting and enhancing the reputations of both the College and the project, and spotting where UCS can add further value as the project's needs evolve. Sitting within the TEC Engine — the coordinating heart of our South West Clean Energy Technical Excellence College — the role
connects our flagship nuclear partnership into the College Group's wider clean energy mission: ensuring that the capabilities, standards and relationships built through HPC contribute to the project's lasting skills legacy across the region and the wider clean energy sector, and supporting the Assistant Director: Clean Energy TEC in the successful implementation of the TEC. While the HPC partnership will command the substantial majority of the post-holder's time and focus, contribution to the wider TEC is a defining expectation of this role, not an optional extra: the expertise developed at the sharp end of Europe's largest construction project is precisely what the TEC needs, and the post-holder will be expected to step across and apply it where it can make the difference. It offers an exceptional platform for someone who wants to operate at the meeting point of industry, education and national infrastructure.
Key Responsibilities
1. Client Partnership and Account Management
To act as UCS College Group's principal day-to-day interface with the HPC client, Tier 1 contractors and their supply chains — building and sustaining relationships of deep trust, managing the partnership as a strategic account and ensuring that every interaction reflects the standards, values and responsiveness on which our reputation is built.
To participate fully and proactively in HPC project governance groups, working groups and local liaison structures — representing the College credibly and constructively, advocating for the College and the project to each other's organisations, and facilitating the solutions the project needs as its requirements evolve.
To maintain a visible, embedded presence within the project — including at the HPC project offices — anticipating emerging client and contractor needs, listening carefully to what the project requires next, and ensuring UCS is positioned to respond quickly, credibly and to a high standard as new requirements emerge.
To manage sensitive situations, competing interests and reputational risk with judgement, discretion and emotional intelligence — recognising the local, regional and national profile of the project and the care required in navigating its many stakeholders.
To host invited guests, delegations and VIP visitors to the Centres of Excellence and the wider skills partnership, professionally and positively representing the skills response to and by HPC — and the wider clean energy opportunity it anchors for the region.
2. Service Delivery and Operational Leadership
To lead the effective delivery of the Managing Agent contract and the full portfolio of services UCS provides into the HPC project — ensuring facilities, systems and processes provide a slick, simple and dependable interface for the client, contractors and their workforces.
To manage the operation and utilisation of the Centres of Excellence, implementing efficient systems that align with client and College requirements, uphold all regulatory, quality, health & safety and safeguarding obligations, and deliver an outstanding customer experience at every intervention.
To manage the professional and collaborative accommodation of third-party training providers commissioned by HPC contractors to deliver within the Centres of Excellence — establishing clear protocols, protecting quality and safety standards, and maintaining the constructive, open relationships that make shared delivery work in a college environment.
To troubleshoot day-to-day challenges at pace, anticipating and resolving issues before they escalate, and keeping delivery on track within a relentlessly fast-moving major project environment.
To lead the data management and reporting requirements across the portfolio, using digital platforms to give the client, the College and governance groups clear visibility of performance, utilisation and impact.
3. Quality, Compliance and Assurance
To ensure that all services delivered under the partnership meet the elevated safety, quality, technical and compliance standards the project demands — including internationally recognised industrial quality management standards, safety-critical technical testing and assessment regimes, and workforce compliance programmes that form part of the project's onboarding and assurance arrangements.
To ensure the College's approved centre registrations, awarding and industry body requirements and quality assurance obligations associated with the partnership are managed rigorously — including the oversight and assurance of delivery undertaken by partner organisations under the College's approvals, where the College carries the audit and reputational risk.
To prepare for and manage external audits, inspections, surveillance visits and contract reviews confidently and thoroughly, ensuring consistently positive outcomes and that essential services to our HPC partners are never compromised.
To work closely with College quality, compliance and curriculum teams to ensure that specialist delivery — including provision delivered through other College departments as part of the partnership portfolio — is coordinated, compliant and of a consistently high standard.
4. Commercial and Contract Management
To lead the management of the contract for services with the client — executing all associated budgeting, financial management, procurement, invoicing, reporting and contract administration responsibilities accurately and transparently, and ensuring the College meets its obligations in full.
To deliver the income and contribution targets associated with the portfolio, managing the revenue streams that sustain staffing, maintenance, equipment, materials and the continuous improvement of facilities and services.
To identify where UCS can add further value to the project as its needs evolve — bringing forward well-judged proposals, developed collaboratively with the client and contractors, that strengthen the partnership and extend the benefit it delivers to the project, the College and the wider community, including the project's ambition to leave a lasting skills legacy in the
region.
To plan ahead across the life of the contract — understanding the project's phasing and workforce trajectory, and ensuring the College's services, facilities and capacity develop in step with what the project will need next.
5. Team Leadership and College Connectivity
To lead, manage and inspire the partnership delivery team — motivating and developing staff to reach their full potential, ensuring efficient deployment, applying all College policies and procedures, and building a culture of pride, ownership and continuous improvement.
To act as the connector between the HPC partnership and the wider College Group — building strong working relationships across curriculum and support services, so that the full capability of the College can be mobilised quickly and reliably in service of the partnership.
To work with College and project communications teams to ensure regular, approved PR, case studies and communications that celebrate the partnership's impact are created and published.
6. The Clean Energy TEC and the HPC Skills Legacy
To work as an active member of the Clean Energy TEC Engine team, supporting the Assistant Director: Clean Energy TEC in the implementation and successful delivery of the Clean Energy Technical Excellence College. Specific TEC responsibilities and relationship briefs will be agreed with the Assistant Director through the College's objective-setting processes, and
planned carefully so that the delivery of HPC services is never compromised.
To bring the expertise honed through the HPC partnership — deep relationship management, the identification of opportunity, the collaborative crafting of mutually beneficial solutions for industry partners and the College, disciplined data and impact reporting, and the enhancement of the College's reputation in the eyes of industry and government — into
designated relationships and workstreams across the wider clean energy sector, helping to make the right things happen as the TEC grows.
To work within the Clean Energy TEC's coordinating structures, ensuring the HPC partnership is connected into the TEC's wider strategy, intelligence and reporting, and that the lessons, standards and relationships built at HPC strengthen the College Group's broader clean energy mission.
To champion the skills legacy of the HPC project — ensuring that the facilities, capabilities and partnerships built through the project deliver lasting benefit to the region and the wider clean energy sector, as one of the project's enduring contributions.
7. Governance, Compliance and College Citizenship
To ensure all activity complies with the College's financial regulations, commercial and procurement policies, contractual obligations and data protection requirements.
To exemplify College and project values in your day-to-day work and instil these values in your team and in all partners using the Centres of Excellence.
To participate actively in the College's performance management processes, including appraisal and CPD, and to contribute to the wider life of UCS College Group in a way that reflects its values and culture.
To support and promote the safeguarding and Prevent agendas, equality and diversity commitments and the wider values of UCS College Group in all aspects of your work, reporting concerns through appropriate channels.
To carry out campus Duty Manager duties on a rota basis, and to undertake any other duties commensurate with the seniority of the post, as agreed with the Assistant Director: Clean Energy TEC.
Qualifications, Skills, Knowledge and Qualities
At UCS College Group we are passionate about learning, responsive to learner, employer and community needs, always aspiring to the highest standards, professional and enterprising, innovative and creative, inclusive, team-oriented, and friendly and welcoming. The successful candidate must share these values fully.
Essential Criteria
Significant experience of managing a strategic client account, major contract or complex partnership in a demanding, multi-stakeholder environment — with clear evidence of building deep trust, sustaining performance and growing the value of the relationship over time.
Proven operational management experience of training, assessment, testing or technical facilities — including responsibility for systems, utilisation, health & safety and customer experience.
Demonstrable experience of working within quality, compliance or audit frameworks — including preparing for and managing external audits or inspections, and maintaining certifications, approvals or registrations on which delivery depends.
Strong commercial and financial management skills — including budget management, contract administration, procurement, reporting and the delivery of income and contribution targets.
Outstanding stakeholder management and interpersonal skills — with the emotional intelligence, discretion and political sensitivity to navigate a high-profile environment with many competing interests, and the judgement to protect and enhance organisational reputation.
Excellent communication and influencing skills — confident and credible with senior client representatives, contractors, industry bodies and internal colleagues alike; able to adapt style and register across a wide range of audiences.
Experience of managing, motivating and leading a team to achieve targets and objectives, with a genuine commitment to developing people.
The ability to work effectively across organisational boundaries — building the internal relationships and connectivity needed to mobilise colleagues, departments and services quickly in support of external commitments.
Resilience, pace and adaptability — comfortable operating in a volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous environment, with a
flexible, pragmatic and solutions-focused approach to problem solving.
A passion and energy for delivering a first-class customer experience, with the tenacity, flair and creativity to keep raising the standard.
A genuine enthusiasm for the clean energy agenda and for the role that skills play in the region's energy transition — with the ambition to see the impact of our major project partnerships extend across the wider sector.
The versatility and willingness to apply their expertise beyond a single client or project — stepping across into wider institutional priorities, including the Clean Energy TEC, and contributing wherever their skills can make the difference.
Strong IT and data skills — confident using digital platforms for reporting, performance analysis and communication.
Full UK driving licence — the role requires regular travel between College campuses, partner facilities and the HPC project, and occasionally to wider clean energy partner sites across the region.
Desirable Criteria
Direct experience of working within or alongside a major infrastructure project, nuclear or other highly regulated industrial environment — with an understanding of the standards, cultures and pace such projects demand.
Working knowledge of industrial quality management standards, technical testing and assessment regimes, or workforce compliance and competence assurance arrangements.
Knowledge of the wider clean energy sector — including nuclear, offshore wind, electricity networks, battery energy storage or lowcarbon construction — and its emerging skills demands.
Understanding of the Further Education and skills landscape — including apprenticeships, funding streams, awarding organisation requirements and employer-facing provision.
Experience of hosting high-profile visits, supporting communications activity or representing an organisation publicly.
A relevant management or professional qualification (e.g. CMI, ILM or equivalent).
For this role you must have evidence of right to work in the UK. As a project, we do not discriminate on the grounds of age, gender, race, colour, religion, disability or sexual orientation, and we welcome applications from all sections of the community.