Senior Regulatory Analyst, Energy Company, Washington D.C

Hanson Search is partnering with an innovative advanced nuclear energy business to appoint a Senior Regulatory Analyst in Washington DC. This office-based role reports to the Vice President, Regulatory and Licensing.

About Our Client

Our client delivers abundant ship-based power to the industries and economies driving global prosperity. It builds, integrates and deploys ship-based nuclear energy systems, including moored floating nuclear power plants serving ports, industries and grids. The business also develops nuclear-powered commercial ships and the industrial capability to manufacture and support both at scale.

With an international footprint, the business operates at the intersection of advanced nuclear, maritime, energy security and industrial policy. It is a growing company working to establish a new global industry, which demands both first principles thinking and disciplined execution.

The Senior Regulatory Analyst Role

The Senior Regulatory Analyst leads discrete regulatory tasks and workstreams from question to finished product. The role supports regulatory programmes across floating nuclear power plants in the United States and other markets. It also covers nuclear-powered commercial ships, a nuclear-grade shipyard and wider maritime nuclear sector development.

The business works across nuclear, maritime, environmental, security, liability and international frameworks. Some pathways exist; others are still being written. The Senior Analyst is trusted to scope ambiguous questions, decide what evidence is needed, run the analysis and present defensible recommendations to senior colleagues.

This is a hands-on role. Senior Analysts do their own research and writing, quality-check the work of others and brief external advisers. They also represent the business at working level with regulators, class societies and industry bodies.

Our client is open to candidates from any sector who have already delivered serious regulatory work in a demanding environment. Specialist nuclear knowledge is not a requirement.

Senior Regulatory Analyst Responsibilities

Recent work gives a sense of the task load. It includes a response to the NRC’s proposed Part 57 rulemaking and a baseline review of the Jones Act and its consequences for how floating plants are built, moved and operated.

The team has also reviewed the historical civil liability conventions for nuclear ships. Early work is under way on how thermal discharge from a moored plant would be permitted at a candidate US port.

Leading Regulatory Tasks and Workstreams

• Own regulatory tasks end to end, from scoping and agreeing deliverables and deadlines to running the analysis and delivering the output.
• Break an ambiguous business question into a workable research programme with a clear method, decision points and definition of done.
• Manage dependencies and inputs from other teams and external advisers, keeping the work moving when answers are slow to arrive.
• Flag risk and slippage early with a proposed way forward.

Analysis and Recommendations

• Establish what applies to the company’s products, including line-by-line applicability reviews.
• Identify where requirements are unclear, absent or ill-suited to ship-based nuclear.
• Compare frameworks across jurisdictions and lifecycle stages, and test whether precedents really support a pathway or only appear to.
• Identify regulatory gaps, uncertainties and risks, then set out realistic options and mitigations with a clear recommendation and the reasoning exposed.
• Frame the commercial and engineering consequences of a regulatory position so that colleagues outside the function can act on it.

Written Outputs and Submissions

• Produce task reports, gap analyses, applicability matrices, position papers and decision papers for the executive team and external audiences.
• Draft and coordinate external submissions with Legal and Government Affairs, including rulemaking comments, consultation responses, white papers and technical input.
• Write concisely and in plain language, with traceable sourcing, so that conclusions can be checked, challenged and reused.
• Review the work of Regulatory Analysts for accuracy, sourcing, structure and clarity.

Engagement, Knowledge and Team

• Represent the business at working level with the NRC, USCG, MARAD, EPA and state and port authorities.
• Engage with the IMO, IAEA and OECD NEA, as well as classification societies and industry bodies.
• Brief and manage specialist advisers and external counsel, ensuring work is well scoped, cost-effective and integrated with internal analysis.
• Maintain and improve the regulatory knowledge base, source registers, completed work compendium, knowledge gap register, stakeholder records and trackers.
• Support and mentor Regulatory Analysts, sharing method as well as subject knowledge, and help build the ways of working a growing function needs.

What We Are Looking For in a Senior Regulatory Analyst

Our client does not expect any candidate to meet every criterion below, and specialist nuclear expertise is not required. It is looking for strong analytical judgement, care with evidence, the confidence to own a piece of work and the appetite to learn quickly in unfamiliar areas.

Experience

• Experienced in a regulatory, licensing, policy, legal or analytical role, including delivering discrete pieces of work with limited supervision.
• A background in a complex, safety-critical or heavily regulated environment. Our client takes a deliberately wide view of what counts, including maritime and shipping, ports and infrastructure, energy and utilities, environmental permitting and nuclear. Aviation, rail, defence, chemicals, pharmaceuticals and medical devices, financial services and telecommunications are equally relevant.
• That experience may come from a regulator, government department, international organisation, law firm, consultancy, engineering firm or classification society. Think tanks, trade associations, energy or shipping companies, infrastructure developers and congressional or parliamentary offices also count.
• A record of turning ambiguous questions into structured analysis and defensible recommendations, including in areas that were unfamiliar at the outset.
• Experience engaging directly with regulators, government or standards bodies, and briefing or managing external advisers.
• Some nuclear, maritime or environmental regulatory experience would be an advantage but is not essential. Familiarity with licensing, permitting, safety cases, safeguards, security, standards or industrial policy would also be welcome.
• Authorised to work in the United States and able to satisfy applicable requirements for access to controlled information and regulator-facing work.
• Willing to travel occasionally within the United States and internationally.

Skills and Capability

• Excellent written and verbal communication, including the ability to explain complex issues plainly and make a concise recommendation to executives.
• Sound judgement with incomplete information, and the discipline not to push a conclusion beyond what the evidence supports.
• Strong primary-source research skills across legal, regulatory and technical material, with rigorous citation and version discipline.
• Strong prioritisation and follow-through, with the ability to run several tasks at once while holding the commercial and engineering context in view.

Ways of Working

• Curious and rigorous, with a real interest in how rules work, why they exist and how they change.
• Outcome-driven and accountable, comfortable owning delivery and the quality of what leaves your desk.
• Willing to challenge assumptions, including your own.
• Calm and decisive under pressure, and comfortable operating where the regulatory framework is still being written.
• Ready for the pace and ownership of a start-up, alongside the rigour a safety-critical industry demands.

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