Working with UKAEA: Commercial opportunities

Find opportunities to work with UKAEA

For information on UKAEA commercial opportunities, routes to market, upcoming work and more, visit our Procurement page on GOV.UK. In addition, find useful resources below:

Creating meaningful social value is a core part of how we work at UKAEA. For more information on our approach to social value, sustainability, and modern slavery, visit our Procurement page on GOV.UK.

Collaborating for impact

We believe that collaboration is essential to accelerating progress in fusion energy and creating shared value. By working together with a range of partners – from academic institutions to industry leaders and international organisations – we combine expertise, resources and innovation to advance fusion energy research and development.

We build each collaboration on mutual benefit. Parties contribute unique strengths – whether technical expertise, infrastructure, or new ideas – to achieve greater outcomes than any of us could alone.

We welcome collaboration opportunities that support our mission and contribute to wider societal and environmental goals. Through these partnerships, we aim to support innovation, achieve meaningful results, and help our supply chain grow.

There are examples of successful partnerships in our Supply Chain newsletter. We regularly share stories highlighting the value of collaboration across the UKAEA network in our ‘Supplier Spotlight’ segment.

National Fusion Skills Hub

We are looking to develop a new National Fusion Skills Hub for the fusion energy sector.

Supporting SMEs in the fusion supply chain

We recognise that SMEs are vital to building a strong and innovative UK fusion industry. We designed our SME Action Plan to increase engagement, create new opportunities and ensure that SMEs can be a part of developing future fusion energy technologies. Learn more about our SME Action Plan .

Annual SME collaborative event

Our SME collaborative event brings together SMEs, UKAEA teams and industry partners to share opportunities, explore ways to work together and build meaningful relationships across the fusion energy supply chain. This annual event will be an important fixture in our engagement calendar.

Bi-Monthly SME surgeries

We host bi-monthly SME surgeries to offer direct, informal access to our teams and provide a platform for discussion, support, and collaboration. These sessions are open to SMEs looking to better understand how to work with us, ask questions, and get advice on becoming part of the fusion energy supply chain.

SME working group

We are developing a new SME working group – a dedicated forum designed to encourage ongoing collaboration and provide a structured platform for SMEs to share insights, raise challenges, and contribute directly to shaping how we engage with the supply chain. This group has an essential role in ensuring we hear SME voices in our future work. You can join the SME working group by filling out our expression of interest form.

Market engagement

We recognise the essential role that market engagement plays in delivering sustainable fusion energy and maximising its economic benefit. With our market engagement strategy, we want to strengthen relationships, encourage collaboration and grow the fusion energy industry.

We host a series of scheduled events throughout the year to engage with the supply chain and provide regular updates.

We also have an annual schedule of suppliers’ events focusing on UKAEA activities. These include an executive overview, a commercial overview, and an SME focused event.

We schedule programme-specific events whenever necessary to share information on large packages of upcoming work or changes and announcements around our programmes.

The supply chain can stay up to date with our supplier events by joining UKAEA’s supplier mailing list. To find potential collaborators, consider registering to our Fusion Energy Industry Directory and our Supplier’s Network LinkedIn Group. Suppliers can also check our procurement portals for information on market engagement activities.

Our regular preliminary market engagement activities and industry days are linked with specific invitations to tender and projects. We will always advertise this activity through Preliminary Market Engagement Notices on the Central Digital Platform via EU Supply.

Join our supplier mailing list for the latest commercial insights

Our supplier mailing list will keep you informed on commercial pipeline developments, supply chain activities, and key updates from our Commercial team — including our quarterly newsletter.