In today's podcast we talk about skills and the challenge facing contractors to build a productive workforce fit for the future.

The UK is in the middle of a huge moment for infrastructure. Government has committed to a long-term national infrastructure strategy, has published a £725 billion pipeline, and repeated its commitments to “build for the future”.

All this points towards a sector finally moving beyond decades of stop-start investment.

Yet on the ground, delivery remains under pressure. Projects are competing for the same finite pool of people. Productivity stubbornly lags behind other sectors.

And despite tens of thousands of people entering construction-related training each year, too many never translate that training into long-term jobs.

Well my guest today is Matt Cannon, chief executive of major contracting group Clancy, someone who understands and faces this challenge - this fundamental tension - day in day out. So I hope he will give us something of a reality check.

Because while the industry is being asked to scale at pace, modernise how it builds, adopt digital tools, and deliver safer, more efficient outcomes, it continues to operate in a system that too often lacks long-term certainty.

Short forward order books, fragmented procurement, and a skills system that still leans heavily on supply rather than real demand continue to undermine confidence to invest in people.

In reality, before the industry can build a larger, more productive workforce, it must first build a safe one - getting more people on site today, working competently, consistently, and with confidence.

Apprenticeships and long-term training programmes are critical, but they take time to mature, and they rely on employers believing that work will still be there in two, five, or ten years’ time.

So the question is no longer whether skills matter - it’s whether the UK’s infrastructure system is set up to support the workforce it says it needs. And of course, what needs to change to turn ambition into delivery.

Let’s find out more from the coal face of contracting

Resources

• Clancy Group website
• UK government announces £600M investment in skills
• UK backs investment in technical colleges
• Vocational level training
• Construction Skills Mission Board demand led economy
• £725 billion infrastructure pipeline

In today’s podcast we explore the power of investment in infrastructure to change and improve people’s lives - every day.

My guest is David Porter, the newly installed 161st President of the Institution of Civil Engineers and a man who throughout his career, has had public service top of mind, top of his agenda and etched throughout everything he does.

As a career civil servant in Northern Ireland, he knows better than most how important it is to work with communities - - and of course how civil engineering and infrastructure shapes almost every aspect of daily life-from the water we drink and the energy that powers our homes, to the transport networks and flood defences that keep the country moving and safe.

And yet, despite its central role, and as David points out, the profession often struggles to explain its value, earn public trust, or influence the decisions that matter most.

But we need to meet that challenge. The UK faces ageing assets, a stretched public purse, ambitious net zero targets, rapid technological change and growing public scepticism about long-term investment.

At the same time, the civil engineering profession is grappling with skills shortages, questions of capability, and how best to deploy emerging tools like artificial intelligence responsibly.

In his inaugural address last November, David argued that civil engineers need to change how they talk about their work - moving away from technical language and towards a clearer focus on the services infrastructure provides and the societal outcomes it enables.

He has also challenged clients, institutions and engineers themselves to raise their game: to become better communicators, better decision-makers and better stewards of long-term public value.

So let’s deep deeper to find out how to ensure civil engineering and infrastructure truly serves society in the decades ahead.

Resources

• David Porter's ICE presidential address November 2025
• ICE website
• ICE President’s Future Leaders initiative
• Northern Ireland Department for Infrastructure
• Transforming Infrastructure Performance summit London 25
• Routes to ICE membership
• Volunteering with ICE

We kick off the Infrastructure Podcast for 2026 by talking about nuclear power and taking a close look at the much discussed - and much anticipated - small modular reactor programme being developed by Rolls Royce SMR.

My guest today is Ruth Todd CBE, Rolls-Royce SMR’s Operations and Supply Chain Director, the person charged with turning this long-standing ambition into a deliverable reality. And having led the UK’s hugely successful Covid Vaccine Task Force back in 2020/21 and worked on High Speed 2, Ruth is no stranger to a massive challenge.

Certainly, delivering new nuclear in the UK is up there in the league table of major challenges. As the recent Fingleton Review put it, the sector is facing strategic failure at a moment of national importance.

We are certainly at a moment of profound transition. The global energy system is under strain from rising prices, geopolitical uncertainty, and the urgent need to decarbonise.

But it is also true that the UK government has responded with one of the most ambitious interventions in its energy history: major investment in Sizewell C, fusion research, and crucially, £2.5bn to accelerate the development and deployment of SMRs.

And at the heart of this renewed ambition for a new “golden age of nuclear energy” is the Rolls-Royce Small Modular Reactor programme - described as the UK’s first domestic nuclear technology in more than twenty years and designed to provide stable, affordable, emission-free energy for at least six decades.

Rolls-Royce SMR’s approach uses factory-built modules, a standardised design, and a turnkey engineering, manufacture and assembly model which aims to reduce the cost and delivery challenges that have plagued traditional large-scale nuclear projects. And it has the go-ahead to deploy the first three SMRs at Wylfa in Anglesey.

Each will capable of powering a million homes, with a design that is up to eighteen months ahead of any competitor in a European regulatory process. Which arguably means Rolls-Royce SMR now sits at the forefront of what could become one of the country’s most significant green export industries and the key to thousands of new skilled jobs and longlasting local legacy.

It's certainly an exciting moment - so let’s hear more

Resources

• Rolls Royce SMR
• UK Government nuclear July announcement
• UK and Czechia to lead global race on small modular reactors
• The Fingleton Review
• Announcement for Wylfa site
• Ruth Todd CBE