What happened

Construction News reported this week that Costain has appointed Rohan O'Grady to lead the Skanska Costain Strabag (SCS) joint venture delivering the London tunnels section of HS2. O'Grady joins from CPB Contractors, the construction and infrastructure arm of Australia's CIMIC Group, where he spent four years as alliance director on the NEWest Alliance, a A$2.9bn programme upgrading Perth's METRONET passenger railway. He becomes SCS managing director in October, succeeding Jonathan Morris.

O'Grady brings more than 20 years across infrastructure, energy and mining, and the appointment lands as HS2's civils contracts continue to be renegotiated and reset around the country. The SCS joint venture is one of the programme's more complex fronts, driving twin-bore tunnels under some of the busiest ground in London, with tie-in works, station interfaces and systems handover still ahead of it.

Why it matters

A change at the top of a tunnelling joint venture this size is a signal in itself. HS2's civils contracts have spent much of 2026 being reworked as the programme resets timescales and costs, and bringing in outside leadership with recent experience of a comparable urban rail alliance, rather than promoting from within the existing UK bench, suggests SCS wants a fresh read on how the remaining tunnel works are sequenced and closed out. Clients making that kind of external hire tend to be bracing for a hard final stretch, not a quiet one.

What it means for your career

If you are a tunnelling engineer, an MEP fit-out manager or a project controls specialist with underground rail experience, the SCS JV is worth watching over the next few months. New leadership usually means a fresh look at the delivery team underneath it, and vacancies often follow within the first two quarters of a handover. London-based civils professionals with NEC contract experience and a tunnelling or deep excavation background are the ones best placed.

More broadly, this is a reminder that HS2 is not one static employer but a string of joint ventures each running its own hiring cycle. If you were turned down by SCS eighteen months ago, a new managing director is a legitimate reason to look again.