Britain's electricity network programme is creating one of the largest long-term construction pipelines in the country, with Balfour Beatty, M Group and United Infrastructure now joining forces through a new contractor group as network operators prepare to invest £181bn by 2035.
The three contractors are the founding members of BEAMA's Electricity Network Infrastructure Services Group, launched on 29 October to bring civil engineering, construction, design and infrastructure services into the implementation of the Electricity Networks Sector Growth Plan. United Infrastructure helped establish the group and its executive director of energy transition and external affairs, Griff Thomas, will chair it.
The timing is significant for contractors because the investment programme is already moving from regulatory plans into physical work. National Grid has allocated an initial £1.2bn of overhead-line reconductoring work to five delivery partners, Balfour Beatty has a £325m contract at SSEN Transmission's Netherton Hub, M Group holds positions across National Grid's overhead-line and substation partnerships, and United Infrastructure has secured both civils and electrical substation frameworks with SP Energy Networks.
LCM previously examined United Infrastructure's move into BEAMA as the £181bn plan was published. The new services group now widens that development by giving the companies physically delivering network infrastructure a dedicated route into the industry Growth Partnership.
United Infrastructure operatives working on electricity transmission infrastructure during tower assembly and lifting operations. The contractor is a founding member of BEAMA's Electricity Network Infrastructure Services Group. Image: United Infrastructure.
£181bn covers much more than construction contracts
The £181bn figure comes from the Electricity Networks Sector Growth Plan, produced jointly by BEAMA and the Energy Networks Association. It covers planned investment in Great Britain's transmission and distribution networks through to 2035, including manufacturing, engineering, construction, installation, operation and maintenance.
BEAMA separately puts the wider opportunity at up to £200bn over the next ten years when network operators and their supply chains are considered together. The Growth Plan estimates that the programme could generate £58bn of cumulative GVA and support a total workforce of more than 210,000 by 2035, including around 48,000 newly created jobs.
For construction, the useful evidence sits below those headline numbers. National Grid's Electricity Transmission Partnership is designed to deliver around £8bn of substation infrastructure across England and Wales, with regional delivery positions held by Balfour Beatty, Morgan Sindall Infrastructure, Murphy, M Group Energy and the Omexom/Taylor Woodrow joint venture. Linxon and Burns & McDonnell are national partners for work outside the regional portfolios.
National Grid has also allocated an initial £1.2bn of reconductoring projects covering more than 1,000km of overhead lines to Balfour Beatty, M Group, Morgan Sindall Infrastructure, Murphy and Omexom Taylor Woodrow. The five-partner programme is part of National Grid's RIIO-T3 investment plan and is intended to increase capacity on existing routes while new transmission infrastructure is built elsewhere.
LCM reported the allocation in June alongside Balfour Beatty's £121m Bramford substation extension, as grid investment became a growing source of civil engineering and high-voltage workload.
Balfour Beatty already has major transmission work under way
Balfour Beatty enters the new BEAMA group with several established positions in the transmission market. It is National Grid's regional substation delivery partner for the North East, one of the five overhead-line partners and a supplier on National Grid's HVDC civil works framework.
Its largest recent individual electricity award is the £325m Netherton Hub contract from SSEN Transmission in Aberdeenshire. The two-year job includes earthworks and civil infrastructure for five platforms supporting two substations and three converter stations, together with an operations base and associated facilities.
More than 800 people are expected to work on Netherton at peak construction. Balfour Beatty has also committed to apprentices and graduates making up more than 5% of the project workforce, while its Painter Brothers steelwork business has invested almost £6m in additional manufacturing equipment and production capacity for infrastructure including overhead-line towers.
M Group is investing in the people needed to build the network
M Group also holds positions across both National Grid substation and overhead-line delivery. It is the Electricity Transmission Partnership regional substation partner for the South West and one of the five contractors allocated work under the £1.2bn reconductoring programme.
The contractor is backing those framework positions with its own training capacity. National Grid says M Group Energy has expanded its Nottingham facilities with a new overhead-line training programme and recruited more than 150 linespersons new to the industry over the past three years, alongside expanded apprenticeships and specialist recruitment.
Morgan Sindall Infrastructure, Murphy and Omexom are making similar investments around the same workload. Morgan Sindall opened an overhead-line training centre in Staffordshire in 2024, Omexom operates a multidisciplinary training institute in Castleford, and Murphy is investing £35m in a Nottinghamshire training facility for overhead lines, high-voltage cables and substations.
That contractor investment is closely aligned with the workforce evidence behind the Growth Plan. Energy & Utility Skills estimates that the directly employed electricity-networks workforce will need to attract, recruit, train and retain around 71,000 people by 2035 as growth combines with retirements and normal workforce turnover.
Construction and installation is expected to be one of the fastest-growing parts of that workforce. Under the organisation's central scenario, employment in those activities rises from about 18,000 to 37,000 by 2035.
United Infrastructure brings civils and electrical delivery together
United Infrastructure has taken a leading role in setting up the new contractor group while expanding its own power transmission and distribution operation. Earlier this year it secured two SP Energy Networks frameworks covering substation civils and electrical works across the Manweb licence area.
The frameworks cover design, construction and refurbishment from 11kV to 132kV, run initially for four years and extend from RIIO-ED2 into the next RIIO-ED3 period. SP Energy Networks said appointing United Infrastructure across both disciplines gives it additional scale and flexibility for new infrastructure, existing-asset upgrades and low-carbon connections.
United Infrastructure is also investing in apprenticeships, its own training academy and routes for armed forces service leavers entering infrastructure work. Its role in establishing the BEAMA services group puts that delivery experience directly into discussions covering network regulation, skills, standards and supply-chain capacity.
Long-term frameworks are giving contractors room to invest
The contractor investment is being supported by a change in the way some network work is bought. National Grid's Electricity Transmission Partnership gives regional partners longer-term visibility of substation work and first refusal on projects within their allocated areas, subject to delivery and capacity performance.
Its Great Grid Partnership uses another collaborative model, bringing Laing O'Rourke, Morgan Sindall Infrastructure, Morrison Energy Services, Murphy and Omexom Taylor Woodrow together as construction partners on major transmission schemes, alongside AECOM-Arup and WSP on design and consenting.
The Growth Plan wants more of that long-term visibility across the sector. Its proposals include earlier supply-chain engagement, longer-term procurement, better information on future demand and a shared approach to measuring UK economic content. For contractors deciding whether to recruit linespersons, expand training centres, buy specialist plant or increase design capacity, several years of visible workload provides a stronger basis for investment than a sequence of isolated tenders.
The next wave extends beyond transmission
Transmission currently provides some of the most visible construction packages, but the distribution network will create another layer of work as RIIO-ED3 approaches in 2028. Substations, cable routes, connections, reinforcement and refurbishment will be required as electricity demand grows from housing, transport, heat and digital infrastructure.
Ofgem's latest workforce evidence and the Growth Plan therefore sit alongside a much wider construction pipeline. The Plan says the expanded network will support more than 2.3 million new homes and around 1,800 EV charging hubs by 2035, while LCM has separately found that grid capacity is already becoming a critical path for UK data-centre construction.
One recent example of the physical programme is Bramford to Twinstead in East Anglia, where Ofgem approved £642.1m of funding on 19 October for 18km of new overhead line, 11km of underground cable, a new substation at Twinstead Green and upgrades at Bramford.
The new BEAMA group gives contractors a formal place in the next stage of that programme. Balfour Beatty, M Group and United Infrastructure arrive with different but complementary positions across transmission, distribution, civils, electrical work and workforce development, while National Grid's wider partnerships already bring Morgan Sindall Infrastructure, Murphy, Laing O'Rourke, Morrison Energy Services, Omexom Taylor Woodrow and other specialists into long-term delivery models.
BEAMA is inviting more infrastructure contractors to join. The Growth Partnership's work will now move into supply-chain capacity, skills and procurement as network operators convert the £181bn investment pipeline into individual projects, framework call-offs and construction packages through to 2035.
Expert Verification & Authorship
Founder & Author, London Construction Magazine | Construction Testing & Investigation Specialist