Plant material

On 17 October 1956, a young Queen Elizabeth II opened the UK’s first commercial nuclear power station at Calder Hall, Cumbria. To those present, this heralded the dawn of a new modern era of clean energy generation with ‘the mighty atom’ at its heart. Although concerns over safety, costs and disposal of waste have brought mixed fortunes to the industry in the interim, nearly 60 years on, power generation within the UK again stands poised on the verge of a second nuclear revolution as a wave of new plant construction builds. All of this is good news for engineers; if all goes to plan, workers with both previous sector experience and relevant transferable skills will face unprecedented demand.

One of the companies at the centre of the new-build programme is Hitachi-owned Horizon Nuclear Power. It currently has two main projects requiring new engineering staff: development of Horizon’s lead site, Wylfa Newydd; as well as general organisation development, as the company grows to have the capability and capacity to perform all its necessary roles and responsibilities across the project’s lifecycle, from developer and nuclear site licensee, through to plant owner and operator. The workforce has already grown dramatically. When acquired by Hitachi at the end of 2012, Horizon’s team consisted of 80 people. This has now more than doubled to around 170, and is expected to grow to around 450 by 2017–18. Peak construction workforce will be around 6,000, with the operational number being up to 1,000. Recruitment is taking place right across Horizon’s organisation in all engineering disciplines and at all levels, although there is now a particular focus on boosting strength at ‘head of’ or lead level. As well as looking at those with previous industry experience, it is considering those across other engineering fields and other sectors.