According to Energy Voice, a procurement model developed by Solomons Europe has helped 16 small and medium-sized enterprises win an estimated £19 million in work on Sellafield’s nuclear decommissioning programme, in a sign that the site’s supply chain is beginning to open more effectively to regional firms.
The scheme, known as Matchmaker, was created to give smaller businesses a clearer route into the highly regulated world of Tier 1-led infrastructure frameworks, where c...
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ompliance demands and procurement complexity have long favoured larger contractors. It is now embedded in Sellafield’s £7 billion Programme and Project Partners framework, the long-term delivery model for the site’s clean-up work.
Government material on the PPP structure shows that the arrangement is built around four main partners: KBR as integration partner, Jacobs as design and engineering partner, Morgan Sindall Infrastructure as civil construction management partner and Doosan Babcock as process construction management partner, with Sellafield Ltd as the fifth partner.
Matchmaker’s architect, Solomons Europe managing director Dominic Doig, said the model was designed to challenge the tendency for large contractors to dominate major frameworks while local firms are left on the sidelines. He said the initiative began with a small group of SME leaders and was intended to demonstrate the collective strength of Cumbria’s business base.
The scheme has now worked with more than 100 SMEs, helped to draw up 40 joint heads of terms and supported 16 framework awards. Firms including Oldham Engineering, RAF Engineering, Delkia and West Coast Thermal are among those to have secured business through the process.
Beyond the contract figures, the project is being presented as a wider skills and employment intervention. Doig said it is generating apprenticeships, training and local jobs, while strengthening the regional industrial base for the longer term. He also argued that the approach could be adapted for other major infrastructure programmes across the UK.
That message comes against a challenging backdrop for the sector. Net Zero North West has identified a substantial shortfall in early and mid-career talent, while government figures show around 1 million young people aged 16 to 24 are not in education, employment or training.
Sellafield itself remains one of the most sensitive industrial sites in the UK. The Office for Nuclear Regulation says it manages more radioactive waste than any other nuclear facility in the world, with significant legacy material still held in ageing ponds and silos. The clean-up effort is therefore both technically demanding and politically scrutinised.
The supply-chain push is also unfolding amid industrial tensions. Contractors at the site have been locked in a long-running dispute over pay and conditions, including the issue of hazard recognition payments. Unite the Union has taken work-to-rule action and has threatened strikes, although Sellafield Ltd is not directly involved in the dispute.
There is, meanwhile, mounting pressure from Westminster over the pace and governance of the site’s remediation work. The Commons Public Accounts Committee has criticised delays in clean-up operations and called for a fundamental reset in how Sellafield is managed.
Against that backdrop, Matchmaker is being promoted as more than a procurement exercise. Its backers say it is a way of linking major public spending to local capability, with the promise of durable jobs, stronger supply chains and a bigger share of nuclear decommissioning work staying in the region.
Source: Noah Wire Services
