Decommissioning of civil nuclear sites must address the diminishing skills base, a lack of clarity on long-term needs, perceptions of the industry and mobility and transferability of resources, says the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority.
Its Skills and Capability Strategy sets out to tackle problems like a diminishing and ageing workforce and the low educational take up of engineering, mathematics and science subjects. It is backed with an action plan setting out its objectives.
Launching the strategy energy minister Mike O'Brien said nuclear energy is essential and tried to link expansion plans with legacy issues.
"The nuclear sector will recruit thousands of graduates and skilled workers over the coming years to meet the needs of existing nuclear power generation decommissioning and new nuclear build," he said.
"The NDA's skills strategy aims to ensure there is a highly skilled workforce in place to carry out the vital role of nuclear decommissioning and clean-up."
NDA chairman Stephen Henwood said he believed the strategy could become a model of best practice that could be adopted for wider skills intitiatives.
He said: "Collaboration is the key to this success, and with many partners we aim to create a highly skilled, motivated workforce that will both deliver the NDA mission but also develop a skills heritage that we can be proud of, both now and in the future".
