Crossrail’s lead partner announced

Tue, 7 Apr 2009

US engineering company Bechtel has won the main contract to manage the construction on the Crossrail project.

The new rail development will cross South-East England, involving £16bn in construction work and creating up to 14,000 jobs.

Tom Nixon, operations manager at engineering staffing specialist EPCglobal, which is an approved supplier to Bechtel, told Recruiter:

“The downturn means that the engineering firms involved in Crossrail will focus closely on costs, so hiring experienced project and contract managers will be the first priority. After these positions are filled, we anticipate that the usual niche skills will be in demand, including tunnelling, signalling, structural and systems engineers.

“Because of the high profile nature of the project we can also expect a fair degree of interest in positions from overseas candidates, which employers may find useful given the general scarcity of key skills.”