Can you prove the supply chain behind this nuclear-island package or build commitment will hold?
From inside your own programme you see your tier-1. You can’t see the sub-tier house — a large forging, a safety-classified weld, a SQEP-limited special process — that more of the package quietly depends on than anyone has counted, the one that turns a win into a build you can’t deliver to the nuclear baseline or to rate.
Settled as the Bid Evidence PackEvery bid is priced on the supply chain you can see. The risk lives in the one you can’t — a shared sub-tier sole-source, a forging order book that won’t arrive to schedule, a component that fails the nuclear-quality or safety-case test the licensee now runs. Win on a chain that can’t carry it, and the problem is yours to own.
Whether the chain behind the bid can carry it.
Typical reader: a capture lead or programme director.
The work is being placed — and the nuclear supply base is stretched.
An ~£38bn Sizewell C build (Final Investment Decision, 22 July 2025) and Britain’s first SMR fleet at contract (13 April 2026) are straining single-source forgings, nuclear-grade fabrication and a SQEP pool the sector aims to roughly double by 2030. As the work concentrates, a hidden dependency can cost you the bid — or the delivery. See what changed →