Our People: Meet Kate Leftly, Nuclear Site Health and Safety Inspector

Our People is a regular feature focusing on staff at the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) and the work we do every day to help keep the nuclear industry safe and secure. It aims to bring our jobs to life while increasing understanding of our role among key stakeholders.

Today, we meet Kate Leftly, a nuclear site health and safety inspector within our New Reactors division.

ONR regulates health and safety across Great Britain’s 36 nuclear sites, aiming to prevent workplace ill health, injury and death by influencing improvements and change and helping our dutyholders manage risks.

Kate joined ONR in May last year and she is currently working on the proposed Sizewell C nuclear power plant, as well as the Generic Design Assessment (GDA) for the Rolls-Royce 470 MW Small Modular Reactor (SMR) design. 

Kate engages regularly with dutyholders about design processes and management arrangements to minimise risk at an early stage.

She said: “The risk profile within nuclear site health and safety is high, making it a significant priority for ONR to ensure it is fully integrated into our wider regulatory activities.”

Kate’s next goal is obtaining her full warrant, which will allow her to perform all the duties required of a nuclear inspector and so is following an extensive programme of training, while collating evidence of her competence. 

She recently passed the 90-minute verbal test (viva) and hopes to gain her full warrant later in the year.

Before joining ONR, Kate worked at the Health and Safety Executive and the Office of Road and Rail (“you could say I am touring the regulators!”), but her career started out quite differently.

She studied law and society at university, followed by a Masters in clinical criminology, after which she worked for drug and alcohol treatment services and with young homeless people.

In previous regulatory roles, Kate focused on inspections and investigations, including train crashes, the Didcot power station collapse in Oxfordshire and the construction of the Expo 2020 stadium in Dubai.

Kate draws on these experiences and her other expertise to contribute to our guidelines for inspectors on the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015.

Outside of work, Kate is a keen walker, currently working her way in stages along the 600-mile Monarch’s Way path, which runs from Worcester to West Sussex. She also enjoys swimming, CrossFit and travelling, most recently visiting Iceland.

Kate, who grew up in Cornwall, is now based in Bristol where she lives with her partner as well as cat Molly, who can often be found on Kate’s desk keeping an eye on her work.

Kate’s favourite thing about working at ONR is the people – “everyone is so helpful and approachable, especially when you are new”.

She added: “When I started here, everything was very different from the organisations I’d worked at previously, but now I can look back and see how much I’ve developed.

“There is so much change happening, it’s a great time to be in ONR.”