NUC0030
Written evidence submitted by the Nuclear Skills Strategy Group
The UK Parliament’s Welsh Affairs Committee is inviting written submissions, addressing the questions below.
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While the Nuclear Skills Strategy Group concentrates on issues relating to people and skills, we have responded to the Government’s Energy Security Strategy to confirm that the nuclear sector should have a strong long-term role in the UK’s energy mix to ensure we meet our net zero carbon and security ambitions.
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The Nuclear Skills Strategy Group is focused on the strategy to provide a suitable supply of skilled and experienced people to meet the needs of the nuclear sector over the coming years.
From this point of view, the challenges highlighted by our most recent Nuclear Workforce Assessment and our Strategic Plan include:
Certainty of nuclear programme – All projects related to new nuclear build have significant lead times and considerable initial investment. This includes preparation of the “pipeline” of developing skilled and competent people. For this reason, uncertainty about the plans for new nuclear build prevents timely decision-making and causes knock-on delays in prime organisations and the supply chain.
Volume of recruitment – Current industry scenarios predict peak net inflow into the sector of 6-10,000 people per annum over the coming years, covering replacement demand, expansion operation demand, and an itinerant construction workforce. This is double or triple current levels. The roles these people will fill will be a mixture of nuclear-specific, general engineering and scientific, and construction.
Competition from other sectors – Demand for engineering and technical roles remains high in multiple sectors in the UK economy, and the demand in our sector is set against an already-existing general shortage in of people with the suitable skills and training to fill them. There are similar requirements in the construction workforce, at a time when other large-scale infrastructure projects also have their own requirements. These factors provide the challenge that our assumptions about transferability from other sectors might vary dependent on market conditions elsewhere.
Equality, Diversity and Inclusion – Given the pressures to recruit and retain sufficient suitable people as above, it is essential that potential good employees are not deterred from entering or remaining in the sector. The NSSG has identified ED&I as a key priority for the sector and has a specific ED&I Strategy to help address issues collectively, in conjunction with the strategies in place for individual employer organisations.
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While the Nuclear Skills Strategy Group concentrates on issues relating to people and skills, the issue of funding does affect certainty of planning as we have noted elsewhere in this response.
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While we do not have specific figures for the economic impact in North Wales, we do know that jobs in the nuclear sector and its supply chain are typically well-paid, highly-skilled and offer good long term stability compared to those in the economy as a whole.
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August 2022