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.
Today, we meet Grace Deane and learn more about her role as Team Leader for Directorate Delivery Support (DDS) in our Cheltenham office.
Our DDS team provides expert administrative, operational and logistical support to ensure our regulatory functions can run efficiently and effectively.
Grace acts as the office point of contact across a range of work, particularly for the specialist teams in our Technical Directorate.
She says her favourite aspect of the role is “interacting with lots of different people and supporting meetings – I’m definitely a people person!”
She adds: “I’m particularly proud of the Cheltenham DDS team’s role in managing ONR’s dosimetry service, which helps keep inspectors safe by monitoring the amount of radiation they are exposed to when on nuclear sites.
“I’m also involved in the management of high-activity sealed radioactive sources (HASS), which are subject to higher levels of regulatory control and security.”
Grace joined ONR in August 2023, having previously worked in operational support for the East Anglian Air Ambulance.
Alongside her DDS role, she recently became co-chair of ONR’s Gender Equality Network (GEN), which works to improve gender equality across the organisation through influencing policies, driving changes in culture, and helping people of all genders be heard.
This is particularly important to Grace because of her involvement in women’s sports: she combines her role at ONR with a Premiership Rugby Union career.
She is currently signed to the Leicester Tigers, where she trains four times a week with games taking place at the weekends.
Grace said: “Rugby is a big part of my identity. I started playing when I was 21 and it has made a huge difference to how I carry myself.
“Because of this, I want to encourage other women and girls to get involved in sports, especially contact sports.”
As part of her wider work supporting women's sports, Grace was recently invited to speak on a panel at the 2025 RAISE Global Women's Sport Conference (see left).
While rugby takes up most of her time outside of work, Grace also enjoys spending time with Angus, her Airedale Terrier (see below).
Asked about how she balances a full-time job with a sporting career, Grace highlights the flexibility of working at ONR as well as her own manager, Eadwine Brown, who she recognises as particularly understanding and supportive.
She also shares how rugby has taught her important skills relevant to her role at ONR: “During a rugby match you have to be able to pick yourself up all the time, do a lot of strategic thinking on the spot, and get along with lots of different people in high-pressure situations.
“This helps me manage moments of crisis or deadlines at work, particularly when working within a team.
“The Cheltenham and wider DDS teams are very tight-knit and open with each other, so we are able to work together well even in pressured situations.”
