What happened

Babcock has awarded KierBAM, its joint venture with Kier and BAM Nuttall, a contract worth around £600m to move the 10 Dock redevelopment at Devonport into its main construction phase, Construction Enquirer and New Civil Engineer reported this week. KierBAM has been on the project since 2022 under an early contractor involvement arrangement; this award converts that into a full construction contract for the dock's water-retaining boundary and associated infrastructure.

The work involves strengthening the existing dock walls (which narrows the dock itself), replacing part of the floor with a new reinforced concrete base to take a submarine docking cradle, and building a heavy-lift gantry crane, five telescopic cranes, and new workshops and support buildings. The upgraded dock is intended to support deep maintenance of the Royal Navy's Astute-class submarines. Navy Lookout, a specialist defence publication, reported that the full contract value may be closer to £750m and flagged that the original 2027 completion target now looks unachievable.

10 Dock sits within Project Royal Oak, a £7.1bn, decade-long investment in HMNB Devonport and the wider Devonport Dockyard. Babcock says the wider programme is expected to support around 1,500 jobs across the supply chain, including roughly 300 roles directly at Babcock in Plymouth.

Why it matters

Defence infrastructure has become one of the steadiest parts of the UK construction market while commercial and residential work has wobbled through the budget and affordability pressures of the past year. MOD-funded, multi-year programmes like Project Royal Oak do not get mothballed when the wider economy slows, which makes Devonport a rare pocket of long-term certainty for contractors willing to clear the security and vetting bar that defence sites demand.

For Kier and BAM Nuttall, the award builds on a strategy both firms have pursued of anchoring themselves in long-cycle, publicly funded infrastructure (defence, nuclear and water) rather than chasing shorter, more exposed private development work.

What it means for your career

This is a live hiring signal for Plymouth and the wider South West, and specifically for people who already hold or can obtain the security clearance that defence sites require. Expect demand for civil engineers and quantity surveyors with marine or heavy civils experience (dock walls, cofferdams, reinforced concrete work in constrained, operational sites) as the project moves from design into construction over the next 18 months.

M&E and crane logistics specialists should also take note. The heavy-lift gantry crane and telescopic crane installation is specialist work that few contractors can resource internally, which tends to pull in subcontractor teams and freelance project engineers from outside the immediate region. If you are considering a move into defence infrastructure, Devonport is as good a signal as any that the sector has multi-year runway left, regardless of what happens elsewhere in the market this winter.