‘Dramatic challenge’ Australia must overcome to meet its side of AUKUS deal

1 month ago 6

London: Australia is being offered more ways to train thousands of workers for the AUKUS submarine fleet, as major nuclear companies warn of a “dramatic challenge” in finding young trainees to build and maintain the vessels.

British employers are racing to fill a labour shortage to meet their side of the submarine pact, given estimates the country will need another 40,000 workers with nuclear skills by 2030, and are worried Australia will face the same hurdles.

HMS Agamemnon, an Astute-class nuclear-powered submarine, at BAE Systems’ shipyard in Barrow-in-Furness, England.

The concerns come as members of a top UK inquiry are scheduled to visit Australia to monitor progress on AUKUS, including the joint ventures being set up to build the future fleet in both countries to a common design.

The parliamentary inquiry, led by Labour MP Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi, is expected to head to Australia on Friday as part of an inquiry that began in April and has heard testimony about obstacles to the vast program.

Babcock International, one of the core suppliers of nuclear engineering to the British defence program, said it was in talks with Australian submarine company ASC to bring trainees to the UK to prepare for construction of the vessels in the 2030s.

“We have made a formal offer to ASC for them to send people over here to get training,” Babcock nuclear operations chief executive Harry Holt said.

British Defence Secretary John Healey speaks to a Rolls-Royce apprentice during a visit to the company’s Nuclear Skills Academy in Derby in January.

Speaking to a public hearing of the House of Commons Defence Committee, Holt said Australia could learn from the British experience in setting up a Nuclear Skills Taskforce with business and government to encourage more apprentices into the sector.

“That’s been very successful here in the UK,” he said. “Various aspects of it, like a national recruiting campaign and regional hubs that we’ve set up, have been very effective.

“We’re sharing that learning with Australia so they can build their own equivalent.”

Holt addressed the committee in Westminster alongside Rolls-Royce Submarines president Steve Carlier and BAE Systems Submarines managing director Steve Timms.

As MPs asked about the pressures in Australia to find more workers to deliver the project, Carlier acknowledged the challenge.

“I think there are some questions to be answered on that over time,” he told the committee. “I don’t think we know how that is going to work yet. I think the Australians have got to reach their own decisions on how they want that to operate.

“It’s a pretty dramatic challenge.”

Rolls-Royce has several Australians already at its Nuclear Skills Academy in England, while Babcock has a similar skills centre that appears to be willing to take Australian trainees.

The AUKUS pact gained a significant boost this week when US President Donald Trump backed the plan in his meeting with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, although doubts remain about practical details of the ambitious program.

Donald Trump and Anthony Albanese at the White House this week.

Australia is seeking to buy three Virginia-class submarines from the United States in the 2030s, subject to whether the US has enough vessels to sell any to an ally. Australia aims to build five newer vessels, known as the SSN-AUKUS, with BAE in Australia. Britain has hired BAE to make 12 in the UK to the same design.

Australia will be expected to have enough engineering workers by 2027 to maintain a Virginia-class submarine that visits from the US, and by 2033 it is meant to have enough to maintain its own Virginia-class submarines.

Timms told the committee that BAE was confident the new vessels would be delivered on time, but he also made it clear this would mean finishing one new vessel every 18 months in Britain – half the time it has taken in the past.

“I think we’re doing well on the schedule,” he said. “We’ve prioritised getting the design right, and it’s important that we take the time to do that.

“I think the area where we’re very focused now is around the infrastructure uplift and the development of the supply chain to move the enterprise from, broadly, one every 36 months delivery cadence to … one every 18 months.”

Critics of the program believe the submarines may never arrive, given that a future US president may choose not to sell them to Australia if the US does not have any spare, and given that there is no design for the SSN-AUKUS at this stage.

Australian Submarine Agency director-general Vice Admiral Jonathan Mead said on Monday that he believed the new shipyard being built at Osborne in South Australia would be the most advanced in the world and would build the most advanced submarine in the world.

Richard Marles visits the Skills and Training Academy at Osborne in South Australia on Tuesday.

Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Richard Marles, visiting the site with Mead on Monday, said Australian workers were going to BAE in the UK to train in submarine construction. He said 180 were working with the US at Pearl Harbour to maintain Virginia-class vessels.

“Nuclear-powered submarines are the single most complex machine that humanity has ever built,” he said. “We’re not only building that, but we are standing up a production facility to build that. It is going to take time. So our best estimate is that those first submarines that will be built here at Osborne will enter the water in the early 2040s.”