“I never realised Chartered status could apply to me”

How’s this for an innovative secret Santa gift – a pocket guide to fusion energy, complete with diagrams, handmade by a colleague? That’s what Sarah Hubbard CMgr FCMI received in the office last Christmas. Sarah is operations manager at Oxford Sigma, which develops materials for the nuclear fusion industry. Yet, unlike the rest of her team, her science education stopped at A-level. 

“I’m the only person here who doesn’t have an engineering or science degree,” she says. “They find me very entertaining.”

Oxford Sigma was founded six years ago with just two people. When Sarah joined last March, she was employee number 17. The business is still growing fast, and Sarah is responsible for everything there that doesn’t require a lab coat – whether that’s HR and recruitment, day-to-day finance, office management or marketing. 

“I’m clearly not here to make sure people are doing their job,” she says. “I ensure they have the tools to do it.”

The voice of experience

Indeed, even with the smartest scientists pushing the boundaries of scientific endeavour – fusion is a potential key to a carbon-free future – you need a manager holding things together. Sarah’s role can involve anything from buying milk to sorting out the contract for a new department head, or liaising with the UK Atomic Energy Association, one of Oxford Sigma’s biggest clients. 

The team’s average age is 28. At the time of writing, Sarah is nearly 40 and has led a varied career. She started out on a local government graduate scheme, before becoming an IT project manager, a lab technician, a start-up founder and the operations director at a digital marketing agency – all while stopping and starting her career in between to raise her two children. 

She believes she secured the Oxford Sigma role in part because of all the experience she has gained through her less conventional path. She says her biggest challenge today is establishing the optimum workplace culture when most of her team are new to workplaces. 

“A lot of people here have never worked anywhere else, or they’ve done a grad scheme for a year and then come to us,” she explains. “But these people are very intelligent, so you don’t want to be telling them how to sit and keep their place tidy.”