UNIX Solaris Specialist

• Salary: £57,117 (inclusive of Specialist Allowance) + excellent benefits including outstanding pension
• Division:
  Computing
• Department:
  Enterprise Infrastructure Solutions

By 2050, the planet could be using twice as much electricity compared to today. Are you interested in contributing and helping to shape the future of the world’s energy? If so, read on.

Fusion, the process that powers the Sun and Stars, is one of the most promising options for generating the cleaner, carbon-free energy that our world badly needs.

UKAEA leads the way in realizing fusion energy, partnering with industry and research for ground breaking advancements. Our goal is to bring fusion electricity to the grid, supported by tomorrow's power stations. In pursuit of our mission, UKAEA embraces core values:
Innovation, dedication, trust and collaboration.

As an employee of UKAEA you will benefit from:

• Outstanding
  defined benefit pension scheme,
  details of which can be found at the end of this advert.
• Corporate
  bonus schemeup to
  up to 7%and a
  Relocation
  allowance (if eligible).
• Flexible working options including family friendly policies and the right to request flexible working from the start of your employment.
• Employee Assistance Programme
  and trained Mental Health First Aiders,
• Generous annual leave allowance starting with 25 days, plus 3 days Christmas closure and 2.5 privilege days, in addition to UK bank holidays
• A vibrant
  culture
  committed to equality and being fully
  inclusive

The salary for this role is £57,117 (inclusive of aSpecialist Allowance)
Onsite working is expected for 3
days each week, however, we actively support requests for flexible working.

This role will be based in
Culham, Oxfordshire.

This role requires employees to
be eligible for SC Clearance (must have resided in the UK for the last 5 years)including The Disclosure & Barring Service (DBS) checks for criminal convictions and possibly a search of open source data.

The Role

The UNIX Solaris Systems Specialist provides specialist technical direction and assurance for Solaris platforms, ensuring that legacy systems and applications are operated in a secure, stable, and risk-managed manner while supporting UKAEA’s ongoing scientific and operational requirements.

Operating with a high degree of professional autonomy, the role exercises judgement over complex and sometimes ambiguous technical challenges inherent in maintaining and evolving legacy platforms. This includes balancing operational continuity, technical debt, and transition priorities.

The role combines Solaris administration with maintenance and evolution of existing applications. It exists to sustain critical Solaris-based applications and services that underpin scientific workloads and enterprise systems, while enabling controlled migration or retirement strategies. Without this role, UKAEA would face increased operational, security, and continuity risks associated with unsupported or constrained legacy environments.

A defining aspect of the role is hands-on software-level engineering, including the maintenance and evolution of scripts, tooling, and tightly coupled applications required to preserve operability and enable transition.

Key Responsibilities

• Act as a technical subject matter expert for Solaris platforms, providing specialist guidance on lifecycle, performance, resilience and operational integrity.
• Administer, support and troubleshoot Solaris 10 and 11 environments, including Solaris Zones, ZFS, NFS and associated storage technologies.
• Design, develop and maintain system-level tooling and scripts using technologies such as Bash, C, Fortran, AWK, Perl and Python.
• Maintain and adapt in-house and tightly coupled applications within UNIX and Solaris environments.
• Investigate complex incidents across operating system, file system and application layers, identifying root causes and implementing long-term corrective actions.
• Identify and manage technical risks associated with legacy infrastructure, unsupported technologies and accumulated technical debt.
• Develop proportionate technical and security controls that balance resilience, operational requirements and platform limitations.
• Contribute to service continuity, recovery and resilience planning for critical systems.
• Provide specialist input into platform migrations, replacements and decommissioning activities, including feasibility assessments, sequencing and transition risk.
• Support data extraction, compatibility solutions and controlled system retirement activities.
• Work closely with application owners, scientists, engineers and other technical stakeholders to maintain business-critical services.
• Translate complex technical issues and risks into clear, actionable information for both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Maintain technical documentation and organisational knowledge to support service continuity and reduce reliance on individual expertise.
• Support vulnerability management, audits, assurance activity and risk-based security decision making across…