IN Brief:
- Balfour Beatty plans to increase its UK workforce from around 14,000 to 16,000.
- Approximately 1,000 additional roles are expected through apprenticeships, graduate schemes, internships, and trainee routes.
- UK Power Transmission revenue rose 24% in the first half of 2026 as infrastructure workload expanded.
Balfour Beatty plans to expand its UK workforce by around 2,000 people over the next two years as energy, transport and other infrastructure workloads increase.
The contractor expects UK employee numbers to rise from approximately 14,000 at the end of 2025 to around 16,000 by the end of 2027. That would follow growth from 12,200 employees at the end of 2023.
About half of the additional intake is expected to enter through early career routes. Balfour Beatty anticipates recruiting around 1,000 apprentices, graduates, interns and trainees, alongside experienced hires required across engineering, project delivery and specialist disciplines.
Early career employees currently account for about 9% of the company’s UK workforce. On its present projections, that proportion would rise to approximately 12.7% by the end of 2027.
The recruitment plan is being driven by a growing infrastructure order book, with electricity networks providing one of the clearest sources of demand. Balfour Beatty reported 24% revenue growth in UK Power Transmission during the first half of 2026 and carries a £2.1 billion order book in that part of the business.
The contractor has also identified a future Power Transmission pipeline of between £6 billion and £8 billion. Its first-half results had already shown the increasing influence of power work on the UK portfolio, alongside continuing activity in transport and other major infrastructure markets.
Group Chief Executive Philip Hoare described the expansion as a response to the capacity and skills required to deliver the UK infrastructure pipeline, calling the planned recruitment “a clear vote of confidence in the market”.
The practical challenge is not simply achieving the headline number. Major infrastructure programmes need project managers, engineers, planners, commercial staff, supervisors, operators and specialist trades at the same time, while competing schemes are drawing on many of the same labour pools.
Apprenticeship and graduate recruitment can increase the number of people entering the industry, but new starters require training, supervision and productive project placements before they can replace experienced workers or fill specialist positions independently.
A rapid increase in early career recruitment therefore creates demand inside the business as well as adding capacity. Experienced managers and technical staff need time to supervise development, while projects must provide meaningful placements without weakening delivery performance.
Power transmission demonstrates the problem particularly clearly. Major network reinforcement requires civil engineering, substations, overhead lines, cabling, testing and commissioning to move through coordinated programmes. Contractors cannot rely indefinitely on shifting the same teams from one project to another as several schemes progress simultaneously.
Workforce geography adds another constraint. Infrastructure projects are distributed across the UK, so additional headcount does not automatically mean the required skill is available in the right region when construction peaks.
Contractors increasingly have to plan accommodation, travel, regional recruitment and local training alongside engineering and construction programmes. The ability to retain workers between schemes can become as important as the initial recruitment exercise.
Balfour Beatty’s expansion will also have consequences for its supply chain. The group works with thousands of UK suppliers, including a large proportion of SMEs, and higher project volumes can increase demand for specialist subcontractors, plant, design services, temporary works and materials.
There is a commercial incentive to build capability before workload peaks. Waiting until a major contract reaches full delivery can leave contractors recruiting into a tight market at higher cost, particularly when neighbouring schemes need similar skills at the same time.
A larger permanent workforce gives Balfour Beatty greater ability to plan resources across projects and retain technical knowledge between programmes. That can be particularly important where work moves from design through construction and commissioning over several years.
The company delivers across roads, rail, airports, energy and social infrastructure, so the additional employees will not be concentrated in a single market. Transferable engineering and project delivery capability will be valuable as investment cycles shift between sectors.
The proposed increase to around 16,000 UK employees is therefore primarily a capacity decision. Infrastructure commitments still have to be converted into designs, construction workfaces, installed assets and commissioned systems, and labour availability is one of the constraints on that process.
Balfour Beatty’s target runs to the end of 2027. The stronger measure of the programme will not be recruitment alone, but whether the additional workforce can be trained, deployed and retained at the pace required by the projects driving the expansion.
