NIA report shows boost for England, but calls for action in Scotland and Wales
The UK’s nuclear industry has reached a record high in terms of jobs, with 98,173 people now employed across the sector, according to the London-based Nuclear Industry Association’s (NIA) annual Jobs Map, the sector’s major jobs report.
The figure represents an 11,000 increase on last year’s total and a 55% surge over the past decade, driven by £14.2bn (€16.3bn, $19.3bn) of additional government investment in Sizewell C, £2.5bn for small modular reactors, and major ongoing decommissioning programmes.
Hinkley Point C, where two France-supplied EPR nuclear units are under construction, has tripled the southwest region’s nuclear workforce – from 8,200 in 2015 to over 31,000 today – making it the country’s largest nuclear hub. The project has also brought £5.3bn of investment into the region, with the benefits soon to be replicated by Sizewell C in Suffolk, which will support 70,000 jobs across the country.
Decommissioning continues to generate high-quality jobs and investment in communities from Dounreay at the northern tip of Scotland to Dungeness and Winfrith on the south coast, the NIA said the northwest is the centre of this work, with 12,000 employees at the Sellafield nuclear site, as well as wider work in the fuel cycle, reactor design, and research.
NIA chief executive Tom Greatrex said the industry is pushing for a change of policy in Scotland, which saw the slowest growth in nuclear employment of any part of the country. The devolved Scottish government has said it does not want to build new nuclear plants.
“Scotland has a good site for new nuclear in Torness and an urgent need for industrial employment after decades of brutal decline,” Greatrex said.
“Similarly, we want to see a clear future laid out for Wylfa in Wales, which again has lagged behind England in nuclear job creation.
“This is and should be a British programme, and we want to see the opportunities brought to every part of the country.”
The jobs figures were released as the UK and US announced a landmark deal to boost the building of nuclear plants in both countries, clearing the way for a major expansion of new nuclear projects and the speeding up of approvals for new reactors.
The deal – known as the Atlantic Partnership for Advanced Nuclear Energy – is expected to be signed during US president Donald Trump’s state visit to the UK this week and could see multiple leading US nuclear companies build projects in the UK.
