Work control coordinator (nuclear)Salary, qualifications, career path and hiring demand, 2026 edition
A work control coordinator nuclear vacancy involves deciding what work happens on a running reactor and when. Every job requires equipment taken out of service, every isolation reduces redundancy in nuclear facilities, and the combination of jobs running simultaneously determines how much margin the plant retains. This role builds the efficient schedule that maintains safety and operational precision.
Nuclear work control coordinators in the nuclear industry earn a median salary of around $105,000 in the United States and roughly £50,000–£65,000 when established in the UK, rising past £92,000 at senior level.
No degree required. What gates the work is strong plant knowledge plus site qualification in nuclear work control and clearance systems, which are plant-specific and take months to develop.
The role at a glance
Everything an employer will ask about in the first fifteen minutes of a screening call.
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- Also called
- Work week manager · online scheduler · work management coordinator · clearance coordinator · work control specialist
- Entry qualification
- No degree required. Most coordinators come from maintenance, operations or planning backgrounds with strong plant knowledge.
- Typical entry pay
- $76,000–$92,000 (US) · £32,000–£41,000 (UK entry)
- Senior pay
- $138,000–$158,000 (US) · £74,000–£92,000 (UK senior coordinator)
- Contract day rates
- £440–£600 for nuclear work control; £540–£740 for online risk management and clearance coordination outside IR35; $82–$135/hr on US work control support
- Professional gate
- No licence. Site qualification in the work control and clearance systems is the practical gate, and it is plant-specific.
- Security
- UK BPSS minimum, SC common. US: unescorted access authorisation under 10 CFR 73.
- Where the work sits
- Operating utilities, fuel-cycle operators and decommissioning sites. Site-based, working closely with the control room.
- Travel
- Low. Site-based, since the qualification and the plant knowledge are specific to one station.
- TRX segments
- Operating fleet · Decommissioning & dismantling · Fuel handling & fuel cycle · Large new build · Radioactive waste management · New technology development
Six versions of the same job title
"Work control coordinator" changes with the plant: a running reactor where every isolation reduces margin, a decommissioning site where configurations change constantly, or a fuel-cycle plant with continuous processing. Note the top segment dominates. Bar shows relative hiring volume across TRX's 2026 desk activity.
Operating fleet
Building and managing the online work schedule: work weeks, clearance and isolation coordination, plant risk management from concurrent work, and the interface with the control room that authorises it. US fleet, EDF UK fleet.
Decommissioning & dismantling
Work control on decommissioning sites, where plant configuration changes continuously and clearances must reflect a facility that is progressively being taken apart. Sellafield, Magnox fleet.
Fuel handling & fuel cycle
Work control at fuel-cycle facilities, coordinating maintenance around continuous processing and managing isolations on chemical as well as nuclear systems. Sellafield, Urenco.
Large new build
Establishing work control and clearance systems for a new station, which must be operating properly before the plant does. Hinkley Point C, Sizewell C.
Radioactive waste management
Work control for waste treatment and storage facilities, coordinating maintenance around processing operations.
New technology development
Defining work control models for SMRs, including how concurrent work is managed across multiple units on one site. Rolls-Royce SMR, X-energy.
What the week actually looks like
A composite day for a work control coordinator at an operating station. Day role working on a rolling work week cycle, in constant contact with the control room. Emergent work disrupts the cycle continuously — noted below.
What nuclear work control coordinators are paid in 2026
Bars show the 25th to 90th percentile of base salary. The vertical marker is the median. Switch currency to move between the US and UK markets — they behave differently, and the shapes tell you why.
How work control compares to adjacent roles
US national medians. The project management specialist median is BLS OEWS May 2025; the specialism ranges are TRX market analysis.
| Occupation | Median | P10 | P90 | What moves the number |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Work control coordinator (nuclear) | $105,000 | $76,000 | $158,000 | Plant knowledge, risk management depth, clearance authority, clearance |
| Project management specialists (all industries) | $100,750 | $65,000 | $160,000+ | The nuclear premium is narrow, though the work differs substantially |
| Outage planner (nuclear) | $112,000 | $80,000 | $168,000 | Outage planning rather than online work management |
| Radiological controls coordinator | $109,000 | $76,000 | $168,000 | The radiological equivalent planning function |
Sources: US BLS OEWS May 2025 for the coded occupations; TRX market analysis Q3 2026 for the specialism ranges. The coded comparison understates the nuclear content, since online work control involves plant risk assessment that general project scheduling does not.
Online risk management
Assessing the aggregate risk of concurrent work on a running reactor is the technical core of the role and takes years to do well.
Clearance coordination
Complex isolations on safety-related systems carry the highest consequence and require the deepest plant knowledge.
Safety system work
Coordinating work on safety-related equipment, where redundancy and technical specifications constrain what can be out of service, commands more.
Three ways in, and one of them is open to everyone
Work control is entered from maintenance, operations or planning backgrounds, requires no degree, and rewards plant knowledge above all.
From maintenance or operations
Three to eight years.
From planning
Two to five years of experience.
Career changer
Twelve months to three years experience.
Are you actually ready to compete for a work control role?
Everything above tells you what the market pays and what it asks for. It does not tell you how your CV reads against the other candidates applying for the same post, and in a field where plant knowledge and clearance experience decide offers, that is the part that costs candidates the job.
Free resume scoring on avua, TRX's job search and application platform. Your score is yours — it is not shared with employers.A strong scheduling CV can still miss the shortlist if it does not show clearance experience or plant risk assessment. The gap is the part you can fix.
Illustrative figures based on TRX shortlisting patterns across work control vacancies. Your own score is generated by avua from your CV and the role you are targeting.
The credentials that actually let you control work
Gated by site qualification in the work control and clearance systems, which are plant-specific and take months to learn.
| Credential | Jurisdiction | Required for | Time | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Work control system qualification | All | Working independently | 6–18 months | Site-specific; the practical gate on the role. |
| Clearance and isolation knowledge | All | Coordinating isolations | Months–years | Central to the role and heavily plant-specific. |
| Plant knowledge | All | Risk assessment | Years | Understanding what an isolation actually removes. |
| Unescorted access authorisation | United States | Site work | 4–10 wk | 10 CFR 73 background check. |
| Technical specifications awareness | US | Safety system work | Months | What may be out of service and for how long. |
| Scheduling software | All | Building work weeks | Weeks–months | Site work management systems. |
| Risk assessment competence | All | Aggregate work risk | Months–years | Site-assessed capability. |
| BPSS / SC clearance | UK | Site access | 2–20 wk | SC is common at licensed sites. |
Work control qualifications are plant-specific and do not transfer, so moving stations means requalifying.
What appears on a 2026 work control shortlist
Drawn from work control specifications TRX has worked in the last twelve months. Ordered by how often a hiring manager treats it as a hard filter rather than a nice-to-have.
Named on the specification
- Work scheduling — Building and maintaining the online work programme
- Clearance coordination — Isolations, tagging and safe return to service
- Plant risk assessment — What concurrent work does to redundancy and margin
- Plant systems knowledge — What each isolation actually removes
- Work management systems — The site's scheduling and permit tools
- Control room interface — Working with the people who authorise the work
What decides between two shortlisted candidates
- Online risk depth — Seeing the aggregate picture, not job by job
- Complex isolation experience — Safety-related systems and multi-system clearances
- Emergent work handling — Reshaping the week without losing control of risk
- Technical specification knowledge — What may be out of service and for how long
- Standing with operations — Being trusted by the control room
- Outage integration — Coordinating with outage planning across the cycle
The 2026 demand map
Demand comes from operating stations managing continuous online work. Site-based with plant-specific qualification.
| Programme | Location | Phase in 2026 | Engineering demand |
|---|---|---|---|
| US operating fleet | Nationwide | Online work management | Very high; continuous work control at every station |
| EDF UK fleet | UK | Operations and life extension | High; ageing plant means more online work |
| Sellafield & NDA estate | Cumbria, UK | Decommissioning | High; constantly changing plant configurations |
| Fuel-cycle facilities | Global | Operations | Continuous maintenance around processing |
| Global operating fleets | Global | Operations | Sustained demand worldwide |
| Hinkley Point C | Somerset, UK | Toward operation | Establishing work control systems |
| Waste organisations | UK & global | Operations | Maintenance coordination |
| Magnox fleet | UK | Decommissioning | Work control on reconfiguring plant |
| SMR developers | UK, US & Canada | Design | Multi-unit work control models |
| Barakah / export new build | UAE & global | Operations | Building work management capability |
Programme phases move. Confirm current status before making a relocation decision; TRX tracks these weekly.
The online counterpart to outage planning
Outage planning gets the attention, but most work on a nuclear station happens while the plant is running, and that work is harder to manage because the reactor is operating and margin must be preserved throughout. Work control is where that happens continuously, and as plants age and online work volumes grow, the role has become more demanding rather than less.
Plant knowledge is the constraint
Work control needs someone who knows what an isolation actually removes from service and can see the aggregate effect of several at once. That knowledge is built over years on a specific plant and does not transfer, so when experienced coordinators leave, stations lose capability that takes a long time to rebuild and cannot be recruited in from another site.
Adjacent and onward roles
Work control sits between maintenance, operations and planning. These are the moves TRX sees most often.
Questions we get asked every week
How much does a nuclear work control coordinator earn in 2026?
In the United States the market runs from about $76,000 for an assistant to $105,000 at the median, with lead coordinators past $158,000. In the UK, established coordinators earn £50,000–£65,000, rising past £92,000 at senior level.
Contract coordinators bill £440–£600 a day, and £540–£740 for online risk management and clearance work outside IR35.
Do you need qualifications to be a work control coordinator?
No degree and no licence. What gates the work is site qualification in the work control and clearance systems, which takes six to eighteen months, plus unescorted access authorisation in the US.
Plant knowledge matters more than any credential.
Can you become a work control coordinator without nuclear experience?
Partially. Maintenance planners from refining, chemicals, and conventional power industries operate comparable work management systems and transfer their scheduling expertise.
However, the gap is significant: nuclear clearance systems, technical specification constraints, and the critical plant risk assessment that determines whether concurrent work is safe all must be learned on site within nuclear facilities.
Is nuclear work control a good career in 2026?
It is steady and growing, because most station work happens while the nuclear plant runs and work volumes increase as the plant ages. It is accessible without a degree from maintenance or operations backgrounds.
The honest caveat: qualification is plant-specific, so you are tied to a site, and the role is under constant pressure from emergent work reshaping a schedule you have just balanced. Nuclear work control coordinators play a critical role in ensuring compliance with safety protocols and maintaining operational efficiency in the nuclear energy sector.
What is the difference between a work control coordinator and an outage planner?
An outage planner builds the schedule for the period when the reactor is shut down, working months ahead on a defined event with a fixed scope. A work control coordinator manages work while the plant is running, on a rolling weekly cycle, where the constraint is maintaining plant margin and redundancy with the reactor at power.
Put simply, one plans work for a shutdown plant and the other controls work on a running one. Online work is more constrained because equipment cannot simply be taken out of service, and the aggregate risk of concurrent jobs must be managed continuously.
Which work control skills are most in demand in 2026?
Online risk assessment leads, because judging the combined effect of concurrent work takes years to learn and cannot be shortcut. Close behind is complex clearance experience and technical specification knowledge.
Work scheduling, clearance coordination and plant systems knowledge are the near-universal hard filters.
We only recruit in nuclear. That is the whole point.
TRX works across large new build, fusion, new technology development, decommissioning, radioactive waste management and nuclear medicine, in 14+ countries. Send us your CV and we will tell you honestly which path your experience actually fits, and what it is worth.