Regional contractors near Hinkley Point C are having to change their building designs and methods on projects due to a looming skills shortage in the area.
Contractors working in the South-west have said they will need to re-evaluate building designs and increasingly turn to offsite manufacturing due to the large demand for workers at Hinkley over the next five years.
Problem areas for the contractors include the demand for steel fixers and concrete crews, with firms already looking at alternatives to concrete frames on various projects.
Steel fixers position and secure steel rebar and steel mesh used in reinforced concrete.
Bam Construct western regional director Tim Chell said his firm was trying to “second guess” the market and was likely to increase its usage of steel frames due to a future shortage of concrete crews.
“It could mean we would steer away from concrete frames to steel frames because we surmise there’d be a big demand for [concrete frame] steel fixers and concrete crews at Hinkley, so [we would] be better steering our projects towards the steel frame option,” he said.
Hinkley Point C will require around 3m tonnes of concrete and around 230,000 tonnes of steel reinforcement on the site, which spans 175 ha.
Full analysis
How the approval of Hinkley Point C and the impact it will have on local resources is forcing contractors to change their approach to regional schemes.
Midas CEO Alan Hope said his firm was likely to adopt similar measures and added that he will also increase offsite fabrication to reduce the amount of onsite labour.
“I think [labour shortages] will drive projects in our area to look at more offsite fabrication solutions,” Mr Hope said.
The £18bn Hinkley project will provide around 25,000 employment opportunities throughout its lifetime.
French energy giant EDF, which is developing the plant, told Construction News that the number of construction workers required will reach around 1,700 at peak.
This will include earthworks and infrastructure workers on site, with BYLOR (a Laing O’Rourke and Bouygues TP joint venture), Costain and Kier/Bam acting as main contractors.
An EDF spokeswoman said: “We do not expect a skills shortage in these areas at present and are working with our contract partners following contract signing to define the employment and skills requirements exactly.”
She added that steel fixers will be required “in large numbers” during the main civils phase of the work, but said EDF had made investments to tackle any skills shortages that may arise.
Among these investments is a £3m National College for Nuclear at Bridgwater College in Somerset, which will be built by Midas in a £6m deal.
The French company is also investing £1.5m in a construction skills and innovation centre, also at Bridgwater College, which it said would help to meet Hinkley’s training demands.
The spokeswoman added: “Upskilling and career progression during the project is a priority and we aim to keep our workforce onsite and within the project for as long as possible – enabling people to take advantage of the thousands of opportunities throughout the lifetime of the build.”
As well as concrete crews, there will also be strong demand for M&E services, welders and HVAC engineers during the M&E and air conditioning phase of the Hinkley project.
This phase is expected to begin around five years into the construction programme in 2020/21.
A Balfour Beatty and NG Bailey joint venture will deliver the electrical cabling and equipment installation on the scheme.
Mr Hope said there would be “pinch-points” in the skills demand for Hinkley, but said his firm would be “better placed than most” to deal with skills shortages in the South-west.
“We’ve already been having conversations with our key subcontractors and suppliers around making that we get some prioritisation because of our track record of working with them,” he said.
Other contracts signed so far at Hinkley include a £100m deal to supply 200,000 tonnes of steel, won by Express Reinforcements in September this year.