Building Resilience: Why Workforce Planning Is as Critical as Engineering Design
The UK’s infrastructure transformation is well underway, but for many programme leaders, it’s not cables, concrete, or capital that keeps them up at night.
It’s people.
And not just any people. Skilled, certified, reliable individuals who can actually get the job done. We’ve worked with numerous clients where the real panic isn't the delivery schedule, it's: "Where are we going to find the people?" or “We’ve tried to recruit ourselves, but the level of candidates isn’t what we need"
As RIIO-T3, PR24, and Ofgem’s RIIO-3 frameworks provide billions in investment, a quieter but more urgent battle is playing out. The scramble for talent, skills, and supply chain resilience.
Resilience Isn't Just About Infrastructure, It's About Who Delivers It
Look, here's the reality. You can have the funding, the permissions, and the programme plan. But without the workforce? You're not breaking ground.
And regulators are starting to reflect that reality. Ofgem’s RIIO-3 and Yorkshire Water’s PR24 plans both emphasise the need for Workforce and Supply Chain Resilience Strategies, putting people strategy right alongside engineering requirements.
Why Workforce Resilience Matters Now
The energy, water, and utilities sectors are under pressure from multiple angles:
A retiring technical workforce, with decades of expertise walking out the door
Increased delivery targets tied to climate goals and net zero ambitions
New skills demands (think AI, data, environmental compliance) that didn't exist ten years ago
DEI and social value obligations that require broader, more inclusive hiring
A supply chain expected to scale quickly — but without clear visibility or workforce guarantees
This isn’t theoretical. It’s operational.
What Infrastructure Leaders Can Learn (and Why Collaboration Matters)
Resilience isn’t built in crisis mode. It starts before the work begins. The best-prepared leaders are doing this, and the most resilient plans show these strategies working:
Building long-term (2,5,10-year) workforce maps, with embedded scenario planning
Coordinating talent demand across alliance partners, not just internal teams
Establishing early-career pipelines through apprenticeships and retraining
Monitoring “at-risk roles” like overhead line supervisors, carbon analysts, and MCERTS certifiers
Embedding knowledge transfer plans for teams with pending retirements
“We realised our risk wasn’t funding — it was engineers. Yorkshire Precision helped us with talent availability, not just procurement timelines.”
— Delivery Lead, Tier 1 contractor
What the Data Tells Us — And What Leading Plans Already Confirm
According to our UK Infrastructure business Plans: Workforce implications 2025 report, roles like MCERTS-certified environmental specialists, 132kV-qualified HV engineers, and digital infrastructure planners are already trending red. National Grid, for example, expects to onboard over 1,100 early-career hires by the end of RIIO-T3, supported by a 60% increase in training days. It’s part of a broader strategic workforce plan mapping 2,200 roles over a 10-year horizon, and yet even with that investment, it projects persistent shortages in critical roles. Overall, its RIIO-T3 investment is forecast to support around 55,000 additional jobs by 2030 across the UK, underscoring the scale of workforce planning now required to match economic ambition. The company is also investing in 400 new annual training slots through facilities like Murphy’s £30m Nottinghamshire centre and Omexom's new West Yorkshire institute.
Yorkshire Water is seeing similar patterns. Its PR24 business plan projects the creation of 6,000 supply chain jobs between 2025 and 2030, yet highlights risks in delivery due to bottlenecks in roles like MCERTS inspectors and hydraulic modellers. Their solution? Coordinated workforce planning with other water companies to avoid overstretching limited talent pools — a model that could serve as a blueprint for other regional alliances.
The forecast also highlights regional pinch points. In Yorkshire, for instance, where National Grid and Yorkshire Water are both expanding infrastructure programmes, we expect compound demand for digital twin specialists, carbon accounting analysts, and systems engineers — potentially exceeding local capacity by mid-2026 without expanded training access.
What You Can Do Right Now (No Silver Bullets, Just Smarter Moves)
Start by looking 12–24 months ahead, not 3. We know that sounds obvious, but you'd be surprised how often planning still happens in six-month sprints. Share hiring plans with contractors. Look beyond your usual sources, other industries have great people if you're willing to train. Bit of a gamble? Sure. But it paid off big time. Revisit your job specs. Are they truly inclusive? And above all, don’t rely on gut feel, use labour market data to see where the red flags are.
Because if your workforce plan is basically 'we'll post it when we need it,' you're already behind, and honestly, you're playing recruitment whack-a-mole at a time when you need a long game.
is your workforce ready?
The fastest way to assess your readiness is with our free tool.
📥 Download: Talent Pipeline Checklist
A 2-page checklist covering:
Key roles and risk mapping
DEI exposure
Early-career pipeline strength
Regional labour trends
Want to go deeper? Book a consultation with our strategic hiring team.
📧 info@yorkshireprecision.com | 📞 0113 418 0806 | 🌐 www.yorkshireprecision.com
