Increasing growth and mounting pressure

Q2 has seen a continuation of the intense pressure on water companies, government and the regulator, Ofwat, to address issues of financial sustainability and under investment in infrastructure.

UK water network suppliers have begun to set out their plans for the PR24 period (2025-2030) to include increased investment but this will not calm the pressure, given the size of the challenge

There have been a number of large projects announced across all aspects of power and utilities with many companies increasing revenue and increasing investment

Though this is good news, there is still much to do and a core focus on attracting and retaining talent will be required to deliver.

Contract wins

National Grid & SSEN

National Grid Electricity Transmission (NGET) and Scottish & Southern E ectric ty Networks (SSEN) Transmission have formally estab ished their jo nt venture to build a 525kV Scotland-England subsea transmission cable

Affinity water

Affin ty has revealed plans to spend £2 55 billion between 2025 and 2030, more than £1 bi lion than its total expenditure set aside for the current asset management period

Siemens

Siemens Energy create over 100 new jobs in Manchester for energy transit on drive. Del vering some of the UK’s largest offshore wind and energy interconnector projects

Pathway to 2030 programme will play a key ro e in enabl ng the connection of up to 11GW of new offshore wind capacity through ScotWind projects, enough to power more than ten million homes in the UK and supporting 20,000 jobs across the UK, 9,000 of which will be in Scotland

Industry headlines

National Grid is seeking key supply chain partners to deliver a major electricity transmission infrastructure programme in the UK Its Strategic Infrastructure business unit is seeking partners to deliver a major electricity transmission infrastructure programme, representing £4.5 billion worth of network construction by 2030.

Turnover tops £2bn at Severn Trent The Coventry-headquartered company has posted a turnover of £2 16bn for the year to 31 March 2023 up from £1 94bn in 2022 Pre-tax profits dipped from £274 1m to £167.9m over the same period, wh le profits before interest and tax went from £506 2m to £508.8m.

Scottish Power owner Iberdrola posts £1 32bn prof t powered by renewab es Scottish Power’s parent company Iberdro a has posted robust f rst quarter profit, a 40 per cent hike on the £940m earnings it posted for the same three months last year

Record nvestmentinScotland’swaterand wastenetwork–'butmoreneeded'.Scottish Waterslatestannua reportseesrevenuerising year-on-year,whilethepublcly-ownedutility retainsasurplus

OfgemsayscurrentNationalGridregime‘notfit forpurpose’ Statisticsrecentlyemerged showingmorethanhalfofgreenpowerprojects inthequeuefortransmissionfacewaitsofmore thanfiveyearstobeconnectedtothegrid

Scottish Power is welcoming former employees back as part of its biggest ever recruitment drive, with up to 1,000 jobs on offer

Scottish Power boss UK must relax migrant rules for energy transit on Keith Anderson, chief executive of Scottish Power told Times Radio that importing skilled labour needed to be part of “ emergency mentality” measures required to tack e the climate change crisis and wou d help the UK to “ go much, much faster” in replacing o l and gas with green technologies

Talent

Hinkley Point C to offer 30,000 training courses to help complete nuclear plant.

EDF has announced plans to offer 30,000 train ng courses for people to help contribute to the construction of the Hink ey Point C nuclear power station

The French energy giant which is developing the Somerset plant said it was investing £24m to create the opportunit es with some of the money being pumped into three new local train ng hubs for welding electrical and mechanical sk lls

The company said it hoped the courses wou d be taken up by people who want to join the projects v a apprenticeships or local businesses who want to enro the r own recruits

New employment research reveals ‘boomerang employee’ trend – with 47% of people considering returning to roles.

New employment research has ident fied a trend of ‘boomerang employees returning to previous jobs as the UK labour market stabil ses.

Reason's people are returning to old roles

63%

New role sn t what they expected 34%

M ss the people they worked with