IN Brief:
- HS2 is expected to complete its latest programme reset by the end of 2026.
- The review is testing whether a lower-speed specification could reduce signalling, commissioning, and cost risk.
- Major civil engineering work is continuing while the new baseline is developed.
HS2’s latest programme reset is now expected to run to the end of 2026 as the project team examines whether a simpler railway specification can reduce cost, delivery, and commissioning risk across the London–Birmingham route.
The review, led by chief executive Mark Wild, is testing the technical and commercial case for reducing the railway’s original 360km/h design speed to a more widely proven high-speed range of around 300km/h to 320km/h. The change is being considered as part of a broader attempt to strip out over-specification, simplify delivery, and create more reliable cost and schedule estimates before the programme is rebased.
The reset had previously been expected to set out a fresh budget and delivery timetable earlier in the year. Its extension reflects the scale of the decisions still being tested across rail systems, train testing, signalling, controls, commissioning, and the interfaces between civil engineering and future operational railway works.
Construction is continuing while the reset is completed. HS2 has said all tunnelling between Old Oak Common and Birmingham Curzon Street has now been completed, while around 2,000 piles have been installed at Curzon Street to support the new terminal station. Approximately 2,700 viaduct segments have also been manufactured at Coleshill for the Delta Junction works.
The programme is entering a more complex phase than headline construction progress suggests. Large sections of civil engineering can advance while final railway systems, station interfaces, train-control decisions, and operational assumptions remain under review. That gap between visible construction and final integration has been one of the recurring risks on major rail projects, particularly where civil works and systems delivery begin to compete for access to the same sites.
HS2’s current review is attempting to work backwards from the future opening sequence rather than simply adding time to existing work packages. The approach is intended to put civil engineering, stations, systems, testing, and commissioning into a clearer order, reducing the risk that expensive completed assets sit idle while other sections catch up.
The lower-speed option is commercially important because the original specification placed HS2 at the upper edge of conventional high-speed railway operation. A move towards a more established speed band would not remove the complexity of building a new railway through London, the Chilterns, Buckinghamshire, Warwickshire, and Birmingham, but it could reduce bespoke testing requirements and make rolling stock, signalling, and commissioning assumptions easier to validate.
The revised plan will shape future procurement. A stable reset would give contractors and suppliers clearer sight of when major station, rail systems, fit-out, power, mechanical, electrical, and testing packages will move. A tougher review could reshape or slow some work before the end of the decade, particularly where scope, affordability, and sequencing remain unsettled.
The decision also sits alongside major live HS2 works moving through difficult urban interfaces. IN Site recently covered the Saltley Viaduct replacement programme, where bridge demolition, utility diversions, rail possessions, canal closures, road access, and future railway clearances all have to be managed before the final structure is delivered.
That type of interface work shows why the reset is more than a budgeting exercise. HS2 is now being judged on whether it can turn a fragmented delivery history into an integrated construction and commissioning programme. The year-end reset will test technical discipline as much as political tolerance, with contractors needing a baseline that is difficult, but usable.