nuclear-news

Sizewell C to move work offsite ‘as much as possible’ amid skills crisis

The National Audit Office (NAO) last month questioned whether investors in the Sizewell C nuclear power station were sufficiently incentivised to keep construction costs under control.

The public spending watchdog said it was “not clear” whether the project’s funding structure would motivate backers to keep costs down below the project’s “higher regulatory threshold” of £47.7bn.

09 Jun 2026 By Greg Pitcher, https://www.constructionnews.co.uk/civils/sizewell-c-to-move-work-offsite-as-much-as-possible-amid-skills-crisis-09-06-2026/

Sizewell C chief executive Nigel Cann has outlined plans to maximise offsite working on the £38bn nuclear project amid a looming construction skills shortage.

He told MPs on the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) this week that productivity was a key risk to the programme and budget of the Suffolk scheme.

Sizewell C, which is backed by Hinkley Point C developer EDF as well as the UK Government and other investors, reached financial close last year.

Asked by PAC chair Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown whether he was confident the Suffolk nuclear plant would be delivered on time and at its lower ‘regulatory cost’ of £40.5bn, Cann replied: “Absolutely.”

But he admitted there was work to do to achieve this.

“You need to manage your risk as a long project; it’s over 10 years,” Cann told the committee. “So we absolutely need to focus.”

He said his first challenge was to get as much equipment as possible built and stored in the company’s 92,900 square metre warehouse ready for the start of main construction. Enabling works including excavation and infrastructure tasks had to be carried out efficiently as well, he added.

“All that [risk] will be retired by 2029 and then we look forward,” said Cann. “It’s [then] about really managing productivity. The UK currently has got a challenge around making sure productivity rates are high.

“It’s about working with all the bodies concerned, including trade unions, including the workforce, making sure we’ve got enough trained people to do the work, and really optimising that productivity.

“Our big challenge between now and [the start of main construction] to make that happen is to modulise as much as possible. So we want to take as much welding off site, we want to take as much stuff into factories as we can, so that when we get to the construction on site, it’s absolutely optimised.”

The first-ever Annual Skills Report 2026 from Skills England this month predicted a sharp increase in labour demand alongside an exodus of existing workers from the construction industry, warning that a million more people were needed over the next decade to meet UK infrastructure commitments.

Cann said all big infrastructure projects contained uncertainty.

But he added: “If I go back to what are the cornerstones that make a project successful, [they are] stable design at the beginning; a very good bill of quantities; a supply chain [that] has done it before, in contract – we plan to have all our equipment contracts signed up by the end of next year. All that gives you confidence that you can deliver a project on time, on budget.”

The National Audit Office (NAO) last month questioned whether investors in the Sizewell C nuclear power station were sufficiently incentivised to keep construction costs under control.

The public spending watchdog said it was “not clear” whether the project’s funding structure would motivate backers to keep costs down below the project’s “higher regulatory threshold” of £47.7bn.

Jonathan Brearley, permanent secretary at the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, told the PAC this week: “If we’d gone for a contract for difference, and purely private finance, we think this wouldn’t deliver either the best value for customers or indeed be affordable for customers.

“And we’ve learned lessons from High Speed 2 (HS2). We are not replicating HS2. We are not putting in a fixed price because of the cost that’s involved. We have created a regulatory system that balances those risks.

“I’m not sitting here saying there is no risk… but I think we’ve put a structure in place that best allows us to manage those risks.”

June 14, 2026 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | business and costs, UK