KierBAM gets about £600 million to rebuild a nuclear submarine dock at Devonport as the 2027 target looks out of reach

The award moves KierBAM from early contractor involvement into main construction, Construction Enquirer reported. The joint venture won the main civils framework for the dock in 2022, and Costain and Mott MacDonald also support Babcock on the program. Navy Lookout said the deal sits inside a £750 million Babcock contract covering the water-retaining boundary of the dock and the buildings and infrastructure around it. Enabling work is finished: old buildings are gone and a concrete batching plant is running on site.

The scope is heavy civil work built to nuclear safety rules. New reinforced walls will narrow and shorten the dock, and the structure must withstand extreme weather, tidal surges and earthquakes, according to Navy Lookout. A new reinforced concrete base will take over part of the dock floor and carry a new submarine docking cradle, and the wider project adds five telescopic cranes, a heavy-lift gantry crane, workshops and support buildings, Construction Enquirer reported. Power, cooling water and other services will run through the new walls.

The schedule is the open question. In November 2023 the Ministry of Defence told Parliament that its submarine waterfront program, including 10 Dock, would be finished in 2027. The new announcement gives no date. With main works only now starting, Navy Lookout called completion within about a year unlikely. The rebuild of the neighboring 9 Dock ran from 1999 until January 2002, about three years, and finished around £283 million over budget.

Luke Pollard, a defence minister, told MPs in September that ways to speed up work on 10 and 14 Docks were being explored, after the Office for Nuclear Regulation ended 12 years of extra scrutiny of the yard in March 2026. No revised completion date has been published. KierBAM ran a recruiting drive this summer for 120 people for this phase.