Guests: Emma Whigham, Alliance Director and Rick Lennard, Chief Operating Officer, New Hospital Programme
Interviewed by: Antony Oliver

In this week's episode we return to the New Hospital Programme - still one of the most ambitious public infrastructure programmes the UK has seen in decades.

National Grid has completed work to upgrade overhead electricity transmission lines north of its Harker substation near Carlisle, strengthening a key cross‑border link that powers homes and businesses in England and Scotland.

Delivered in partnership with principal contractor Morgan Sindall Infrastructure, the work forms part of National Grid’s wider Harker upgrade project. This includes building new 400kV and 132kV indoor substations adjacent to its existing site, enabling new connections and helping to future-proof the network in the region.

National Grid has launched Triton, an innovative new Digital Twin and Data Visualisation Tool that will revolutionise electricity infrastructure planning.

Developed in collaboration with Atos, a global leader in AI-powered digital transformation, Triton will enable National Grid to accelerate how it plans the future electricity network and support the significant increase in energy demand required to achieve Great Britain’s decarbonisation goals.

Balfour Beatty, the international infrastructure group, today announces that it has been awarded the £315 million seven-year Warwickshire Highways Maintenance contract by Coventry City Council, Solihull Metropolitan Borough Council and Warwickshire County Council.

Funding for 2026 and 2027 is being released to support transformational community projects around the wind park

SSE and Greencoat Renewables, co‑owners of Galway Wind Park, have opened the 2026 round of the Galway Wind Park Major Projects Fund, with €300,000 available to support large‑scale, community‑led initiatives within 10km of the wind farm.

The first engineering train has arrived into the Sizewell C site, marking a significant milestone in the development of the new nuclear power station on the Suffolk coast.

Reaching the project’s Ancillary Construction Area (ACA) on Monday morning, the train travelled via the Sizewell branch line – a route that has been significantly upgraded recently by Balfour Beatty Rail on behalf of Sizewell C.

UK pressure vessel manufacturer LTi Metaltech Ltd has been awarded a contract worth more than GBP45 million (USD60 million) by Sellafield Ltd to manufacture and supply containers for use in Sellafield's Product and Residue Store Retreatment Plant.

Amentum has been selected to provide missile design engineering and program management expertise to advance the UK’s ambition for hypersonic strike capabilities. The Industry Mission Partner (IMP) contract was awarded by Team Hypersonics UK, part of the Ministry of Defence, to accelerate weapon development and sovereign capability while bolstering collaboration with Australia and the United States through the AUKUS agreement.

Amentum has won a suite of new contracts from Électricité de France (EDF) worth up to $730 million (£540 million), expanding the critical solutions it provides for the UK’s existing nuclear reactors as well as the construction of a new gigawatt power station at Hinkley Point.

Loren Jones, senior vice president and head of Amentum’s Energy & Environment-International business, said: “Amentum’s expertise in gigawatt reactor operational support and life extension makes it the ideal partner for EDF, one of the world’s largest nuclear utilities.

New Zealand-based fusion energy startup OpenStar Technologies says it has become the first commercial company in the world to successfully create and confine plasma using a levitated dipole reactor.

OpenStar is the only company developing a levitated dipole reactor for commercial purposes. In other fusion concepts, the energetic plasma is contained by superconducting magnets pushing the magnetic fields they produce inwards. OpenStar's approach inverts that process.

French small modular reactor developer Blue Capsule Technology has announced the start of construction of ELISE - a full-size test rig for sodium at high temperatures - at Peyrolles-en-Provence, in collaboration with France's CSTI Groupe.

South Africa’s engineering shortage is well‑documented. The country has far fewer engineers per capita than global benchmarks, and this shortage is visible in infrastructure failures, delayed energy projects, and slow digital transformation.

Below is a breakdown of the engineering skills currently in highest demand.

Civil, Structural & Infrastructure Engineering
These are among the most critically short skills in the country.