Sellafield Ltd is one of the biggest employers in Cumbria, with a workforce of more than 11,500 and an extensive supply chain throughout the UK.

At the helm of it is chief executive Martin Chown, a man whose key mission is to make the site ‘the best that it can be’ for all who work there.

Martin took over leadership of Sellafield in 2020 and is overseeing it through a key period of change, with £4billion of capital build on the site.

Despite its challenges and pressures, Martin thinks his role at Britain’s biggest nuclear site is ‘fantastic’.

He said: “It’s a challenging role, it’s different every day and every week and there is always an awful lot going on – and I absolutely love my job, I think it’s a fantastic job.

“I love working with all of our teams, all of our people and everybody in the community who supports us in terms of what we do. I like the difficulty of it, the challenge of it, trying to make Sellafield the best it can be.”

Among the many challenges, what are his stand out moment so far?

“I think the way we finished reprocessing at Magnox. We released a film, I thought that was one of the highlights.

"It’s probably unusual to say the ending of something is a highlight, but the way we did it and the way we brought our workforce to talk about their lived experience and how they get an immense pride in what they do.

"If we can capture that and get people to perform at their best and then do something else and feel positive about that, which is the way we did it, I just think that’s a fantastic thing.”

He started his career as an apprentice before moving through the ranks in a number of key industries, both in the UK and further afield.

He says his experience can often help him understand some of the challenges those on the ground at Sellafield face in their work.

“I spend a lot of time with our people who are carrying out nuclear operations at Sellafield and our construction staff.

"I have a great deal of empathy for what they do and going out sometimes for outdoor work in all weathers or working in nuclear plants and the difficulties that involves. I have worked in similar environments myself.

“I understand their work, what they do, and I am happy to talk to them about the challenges they face.”

Sellafield has a number of key missions in the near future, with Martin saying a key aim is to improve pace on the plant, on what he says is still a ‘growing site’.

“It’s a fantastic time at Sellafield,” he said. “We stopped reprocessing last year and we are changing what we do, so we want to repackage the old legacy material as we call it at Sellafield into high-integrity containers and that’s our big mission, as well as fuel.”