Rolls-Royce’s mini-nuclear reactor operation is planning a hiring blitz after the Government threw its weight behind plans to build more than a dozen plants in Britain.
The engineer’s ‘small modular reactor’ company is set to hire 500 people over the next 12 months, with 400 joining this year.
More than 150 staff are due to be transferred from the parent company – which owns a 70 per cent stake in Rolls-Royce SMR – taking its workforce to around 700.
Hiring blitz: Rolls-Royce’s ‘small modular reactor’ company is set to hire 500 people over the next 12 months, with 400 joining this year
Boris Johnson has backed the project and committed £210million in grants to get it off the ground. It has also received backing from the Qatar Investment Authority.
The company says if it gets regulatory approval from the Government by 2024 then it can provide power to the UK grid by 2029.
SMRs can largely be built in factories and assembled on-site, making them cheaper and quicker to assemble than traditional reactors.
Each will cover a site about the size of two football pitches and can power a million homes.
Rolls-Royce SMR is drawing up a shortlist of locations for its first factory.
It received about 100 submissions from areas offering to host the site.
A Rolls-Royce SMR spokesman said the hiring spree would ‘create a legacy for generations to come’.