A £640m framework, split eight ways
National Grid has appointed eight contractors to a framework worth up to £640m for the installation of 66kV and 132kV electricity cables across its transmission and distribution networks. Each contractor holds an £80m share. The framework runs for twelve months from 13 July 2026, with an option to extend for a further year, and covers the East Midlands, West Midlands, South West and South Wales.
The scope is full installation of 66kV, 132kV and lower-voltage cable circuits, together with associated earth wires and telecoms ducts. The appointed contractors also take responsibility for jointing, testing and commissioning on individual routes and projects.
The eight firms are Balfour Beatty Utility Solutions, OCU Services, Excalon, A Thomas Plant Hire, United Infrastructure (Power T&D), Circet IRE & UK, M&A Doocey and Network Plus Services. Between them they now hold a mandate to rewire a substantial part of the network across four regions, on a framework that goes live in a matter of weeks.
The constraint is not capital
Frameworks of this size tend to be reported as investment stories. The more useful way to read this one is as a labour story.
Installing and energising HV cable circuits is not general electrical work. Cable jointing at 66kV and 132kV is a narrow, time-served discipline. A jointer working at these voltages has typically spent years progressing through lower-voltage authorisations before being passed out on higher-voltage joints, and the testing and commissioning of completed circuits sits with a similarly small population of authorised staff. These skills cannot be trained up within the life of a twelve-month framework. The people who will deliver this programme in 2026 and 2027 are, for all practical purposes, already in the industry today.
That population is small, and it is not growing.
The arithmetic behind the shortage
CITB's latest Construction Workforce Outlook estimates the industry needs an average of 41,200 additional workers each year between 2026 and 2030, roughly 206,000 in total, simply to meet forecast demand. The supply side is moving the other way. ONS employment data for the first quarter of 2026 puts the construction workforce at around 2.05 million, about 4% smaller than a year earlier.
Those are whole-industry figures. The specialist end of the market is tighter still, because the HV workforce skews older and the routes into it are longer. When demand rises against a shrinking base, the shortage lands first where training lead times are longest. Carded HV jointers and operatives sit at exactly that point.
Eight contractors, one pool
The structure of the framework sharpens the problem. All eight contractors will be competing for work orders across the same four regions, and all eight will be resourcing from substantially the same pool of ECS-carded HV labour, at the same time, from mid-July onwards. A contractor that wins a route needs jointing gangs on the ground quickly. A framework year is short, and any extension decision will presumably be informed by delivery.
The predictable consequences are rate inflation and availability gaps. Firms that secure their labour supply lines before work orders land will mobilise on programme. Firms that start recruiting when the purchase order arrives will find that the jointers they need are already on someone else's route.
Securing the workforce before the work order
Silvmarc supplies pre-vetted, ECS-carded electrical operatives for HV and substation work across the UK. Vetting, right-to-work checks, CIS and payment compliance are handled before an operative reaches site, so contractors can mobilise labour at framework pace rather than recruitment pace.
If you are resourcing for this framework, or for HV work anywhere on the network, talk to Silvmarc about labour supply before the work orders land.
£640m has been committed to the grid. The workforce to deliver it has not been.