What happened

HS2 revealed on 14 August the first six completed high-speed platforms inside the underground station box at Old Oak Common in west London, the below-ground station that will link HS2 services to the Great Western Main Line and the wider network. The platforms, each 450 metres long, were built by casting 1.59-metre invert walls in situ before lifting and securing 1,946 pre-cast concrete slabs, manufactured in Worksop in the East Midlands and each weighing up to five tonnes, into place. Construction was carried out by subcontractor Expanded on behalf of the Balfour Beatty VINCI SYSTRA (BBVS) joint venture, which holds the roughly £1 billion contract to deliver the station.

With the platform structure complete, HS2 says the next phase moves into fit-out: staff and equipment rooms, lift and escalator installation, and floor finishes. That marks a change in the nature of the work on site, from heavy civils and concrete to building services, M&E and interior fit-out trades.

Why it matters

Old Oak Common has always been sold on the jobs and regeneration numbers attached to it, up to 65,000 jobs and 25,000 homes in the wider West London area over the life of the scheme, with a construction-peak workforce of around 2,500 on site. Those figures have taken years to move from planning documents into visible, physical progress. A completed platform box is the point at which a station project stops being steelwork and concrete and starts needing the trades that actually finish a building: M&E installers, lift and escalator specialists, fit-out contractors and the commercial and project management teams who coordinate a multi-disciplinary handover programme.

It also matters as a signal for the rest of the HS2 programme. Old Oak Common has been one of the scheme's better-progressing elements against a backdrop of reset contracts and delayed decisions elsewhere on the route (HS2's civils partners EKFB and Align have both had contracts restructured this year). A visible, on-schedule milestone here gives the programme some evidence to point to at a moment when confidence in HS2 delivery has been under pressure.

What it means for your career

If you're in M&E, fit-out or building services and have been waiting for HS2 site work to materialise beyond the civils phase, this is the moment it starts. BBVS and its supply chain will be mobilising trades onto Old Oak Common for lift and escalator installation, plant rooms and finishes over the coming months, and that demand will cascade to specialist M&E and fit-out subcontractors who can show major infrastructure experience. For project managers and commercial staff, the shift from civils to building phase also typically means a change in the type of PM needed on site, from earthworks and structures sequencing toward multi-trade coordination and stringent handover programming, a different CV to bring to an interview even on the same job.

More broadly, if HS2 experience is on your CV or you're targeting it, Old Oak Common reaching this stage is worth citing directly: it's evidence the programme is producing real, physical, on-schedule delivery, which matters when you're trying to convince a hiring panel that HS2 experience is current and credible rather than historic.