Inside the battle to replace Britain’s ageing nuclear deterrent
It was meant to demonstrate Britain’s undisputed role as one of the world’s nuclear powers.
But as Grant Shapps, the Defence Secretary, came aboard HMS Vanguard to watch the refitted submarine test-fire a dummy Trident missile, the unthinkable happened: it failed.
Instead of surging into the sky, the missile was ejected from the launch bay before crashing into the ocean after its boosters failed to fire.
The flop, which followed a separate Trident mishap in 2016, triggered questions about the system’s effectiveness, forcing Shapps to publicly insist it was “effective, dependable, and formidable”.
Now, to ensure that remains the case, ministers are ploughing tens of billions of pounds into the biggest overhaul of Britain’s nuclear deterrent in a generation.
That will involve massive submarine-building programmes, including the delivery of Dreadnought-class boats in the early 2030s, as well as major upgrades to infrastructure.
Projects already underway include a £750m overhaul of Babcock’s submarine maintenance facility at HMNB Devonport in Plymouth, a £1bn expansion of BAE Systems’ shipyard at Barrow-in-Furness and a doubling of capacity at Rolls-Royce’s submarine reactor facility in Derby.
But on Monday, ministers also announced a “national endeavour” to expand the nuclear workforce underpinning these programmes, backed by nearly £1bn of public-private investment.
The money includes £200m for schemes at Barrow and £763m to support industry recruitment, including the creation of some 5,000 apprenticeships.
It comes after an official task force found roughly 80,000 people in the civil and defence nuclear sectors today – a figure that must rise to at least 125,000 by 2030 to meet the Government’s military and energy ambitions.
These include programmes to deliver the Dreadnought-class nuclear deterrent submarines and the next generation of nuclear-propelled SSN-Aukus attack submarines, not to mention a fleet of new power stations to keep the lights on at home.
At stake, says David Lockwood, chief executive of defence and civil nuclear contractor Babcock, is Britain’s ability to keep itself safe.
“In a very fragile world, national sovereignty is at stake if we can’t put submarines to sea,” he says. “And nuclear power is a key part of the Government’s net zero targets.
“So without this recruitment, we’ll have to choose between net zero and national security – which is not a good choice to be faced with.”
Yet growing the nuclear industry quickly enough will require a recruitment drive on a scale never attempted before.
It means hiring thousands of extra scientists, software developers and engineers, as well as tradesmen such as welders, electricians, and fitters, not to mention project managers, lawyers and other back-office personnel such as procurement experts.
A huge number of these people will be apprentices, who can be trained up through the ranks.
But to begin with, many will also have to be poached from other industries with “transferable skills”.
As part of these efforts, a new government-backed campaign and website – Destination Nuclear – has been created to bring together opportunities across the entire industry for the first time.
This push is also aimed at transforming nuclear’s somewhat clunky image.
There are no pictures of grey cooling towers on Destination Nuclear’s website – instead, it features images of submarines, sailors examining radar screens, and a man teaching people how to write software.
The nuclear industry is a way workers can help provide “low-carbon electricity to millions” or ensure “peace and stability for the nation” by contributing to the nuclear deterrent, it explains.
These points were echoed by Shapps in a paper published on Monday. In it, the Defence Secretary argues Britain must be “more vocal” about why its nuclear capabilities are so essential, as well as the exciting opportunities available to those who work on them.
“What other programme can combine the ingenuity of the Apollo missions with the science of the Manhattan Project?”, he says.
Most of the industry’s future jobs will be in defence, according to a report published late last year by the Nuclear Skills Taskforce.
Whereas today the mix is roughly split 50-50 between defence and civil, by 2043 defence is expected to represent 73pc of jobs. This is largely thanks to both the Dreadnought and SSN-Aukus submarine programmes, which will keep workers busy for the next three decades at least.
But behind the recruitment drive is also a huge expansion of nuclear energy, under which ministers have targeted up to 24 gigawatts of capacity by 2050, compared to about 6 gigawatts now.
That is expected to involve deploying the first small modular reactors (SMRs), a cutting-edge technology that Rolls-Royce and others are currently racing to develop, potentially in the early 2030s.
Lee Warren, director of engineering and technology at Rolls-Royce Submarine, who himself started as a school-leaver apprentice, says the nuclear defence sector needs to emphasise the challenging nature of its work, as well as its national importance.
One thing critical to the industry’s success is dispelling a perception that the nuclear industry is only for people with PhDs, says Richard Hamer, education director at BAE Systems – although he notes many apprenticeships end with the learner receiving one.
“The bulk of apprentices are doing things like welding, or pipe fitting, or metal fabrication,” he says. “They are electricians, machinists and engineers.
“You also have people like scaffolders, painters, and even tilers – not dealing with your typical bathroom tile, of course, but the specialist kind that goes on the outside of submarines.
“Lots of our young people are inspired by the complexity of the technology and the challenge it presents. It’s seeing those huge submarines in the drydock, whatever you are doing, and realising you are playing a significant and important role.”
He adds that many people often go for broader-sounding roles rather than putting themselves forward for more specialised apprenticeships, perhaps because they assume they lack experience or knowledge. As a result, BAE often guides people towards more specialised roles during the application process.
But just as important is the industry’s ability to lure people from better-paid jobs and convince younger generations – who polls show are more focused on “making an impact” than others before them – that working on nuclear is a valuable use of their time.
“There was a period where graduates all went into the banking system and the like, so there is this missing piece of the jigsaw,” says Babcock boss Lockwood.
“But if you’ve now got a generation that wants to make an impact, what you’ve got to persuade them of is that we make an impact that really matters.
“They’ll be data scientists whose choice will be between us and Google – and we want them to choose us.
“So this can’t be a fad, it needs to be something we stick with.”
