IN Brief:
- Structural steel erection is under way on Aberdeen’s replacement Hazlehead Academy Campus.
- Around 80 truckloads of steel are expected while the existing school remains operational beside the construction site.
- The new 1,600-pupil campus is due to open in August 2028, followed by demolition and remaining external works.
Robertson Group has moved into structural steel erection at the new Hazlehead Academy Campus in Aberdeen, giving the replacement secondary school its first substantial above-ground form.
Around 80 truckloads of steel are expected at the site as the frame develops. Construction began in March 2026, with the new academy scheduled to become operational in August 2028 while the existing school remains in use beside the works.
The latest project update describes the overall campus as a £124m investment. Robertson’s current project case study separately lists a value of £117m, so the two published figures should not be treated as interchangeable. Both sources agree on the wider programme, 1,600-pupil capacity, and the continuing construction sequence.
Once pupils transfer into the replacement building, the existing academy is due to be demolished and its footprint incorporated into the remaining external sports and landscape works. The wider campus programme is expected to continue into 2029 rather than ending when the new school first opens.
Building the replacement on the existing playing fields allows education to continue without creating a separate temporary secondary-school campus, but it concentrates construction logistics beside an operational school. Deliveries, lifting operations, workforce access, compounds, safeguarding, noise, dust, and emergency routes have to be managed around pupils and staff throughout the main build.
The steel phase is particularly visible because it begins to establish the building’s volume, but its importance lies in the interfaces it fixes for later packages. Façade zones, roof geometry, plant loads, structural penetrations, service risers, circulation cores, and longer-span spaces all have to align with the frame before enclosure and MEP installation accelerate.
Robertson describes the new academy as a three-storey building with a roof-void plant area, facing brickwork, rainscreen cladding, a pitched roof, and large integrated photovoltaic arrays. Outdoor facilities will include two full-size all-weather pitches and an athletics sprint track.
Those uses generate different structural and servicing demands within the same campus. General teaching accommodation benefits from repeatable grids and standardised rooms, while sports, assembly, dining, specialist teaching, and building-services areas can require larger spans, different loading assumptions, and more concentrated MEP provision.
Ewen Fowlie, operations director at hub North Scotland, described the start of steel erection as a significant stage because the physical form of the campus is now becoming visible.
For the delivery team, however, the immediate requirement is coordination rather than appearance. Steel tolerances and connection positions will affect curtain walling and cladding, while roof zones need to accommodate photovoltaic installations and plant without creating later clashes between structure, drainage, access, and maintenance routes.
The occupied-school setting will continue to influence productivity. Large steel sections require controlled delivery slots, crane operations, exclusion zones, and vehicle movements, and those activities have to fit around the academy’s daily timetable and the movement of pupils and staff.
The construction sequence also extends well beyond the point at which the replacement building is ready for occupation. After the school transfers, demolition of the existing academy creates another major phase involving strip-out, demolition, waste movements, remediation, drainage, landscaping, and completion of the external sports facilities.
That phasing separates building handover from final campus completion. The distinction matters because temporary routes, site boundaries, safeguarding measures, and construction traffic may remain in place after pupils move into the new building unless the later demolition and external packages are closely coordinated.
Energy performance will also depend on more than the integrated photovoltaic panels. Envelope continuity, airtightness, insulation, heating, ventilation, controls, metering, commissioning, and building operation will determine how the academy performs once occupied.
Schools place particularly heavy demands on durability because finishes, doors, sanitary areas, circulation spaces, sports facilities, and building systems are exposed to high daily use over long operating periods. Specification and access for maintenance therefore have a direct relationship with lifecycle cost.
Hazlehead Academy Campus is also the first project in the North Schools Programme, through which five local authorities are working together on school-estate investment. That gives its delivery methods, performance data, and procurement experience potential value beyond Aberdeen as subsequent projects move forward.
The frame now establishes the outline of the replacement academy, but enclosure, services integration, internal fit-out, commissioning, school transfer, demolition, and final external works remain ahead. The programme will be judged across that full sequence rather than at the point when the last steel section is erected.
