Hinkley Point C leadership change: delivery and risk implications for engineers
Reviewed by Joe Ashwell
First reported on The Construction Index
30 Second Briefing
Leadership of the 3.2GW Hinkley Point C nuclear construction project will pass to Mark Hartley on 1 July, as EDF appoints its current managing director of nuclear operations to replace long-serving project chief executive Stuart Crooks. Hartley previously spent five years as Hinkley Point C technical director, while his current role will be taken by John Munro, now director of nuclear operations and former station director at Torness and Heysham 2. Crooks will stay involved as a non-executive board member for Sizewell C and EDF’s nuclear operations, and as advisor to the Cottam SMR project in Nottinghamshire.
Technical Brief
- Leadership transition is formally scheduled for 1 July, giving a defined handover point for project governance.
- Hartley’s prior five-year tenure as Hinkley Point C technical director provides continuity on design, construction methods and safety case.
- EDF is explicitly framing the move as a “carefully planned transition”, indicating no reactive change to programme risk.
- Simone Rossi links Crooks’ “replication strategy” to measurable performance gains on Hinkley Point C’s second unit construction.
- The same replication approach is intended to de-risk Sizewell C by directly reusing Hinkley Point C learnings.
- Crooks’ non-executive role across Sizewell C and EDF nuclear operations keeps a single technical narrative across multiple megaprojects.
- Advisory input to the Cottam SMR project suggests alignment of large EPR build experience with future modular deployment.
- Leadership drawn from former station directors at Torness and Heysham 2 embeds operational plant experience into new-build decision-making.
Our Take
In our database, Hinkley Point C is one of the few UK infrastructure schemes that still features prominently in medium‑term construction growth forecasts, so a leadership change there will be watched closely by contractors already exposed to the downgraded 2026 outlook flagged by the Construction Products Association.
With ongoing ONR prosecutions related to incidents at Hinkley Point C, the leadership transition will not just be about delivery but also about demonstrating improved safety culture and contractor oversight across EDF’s UK fleet, including Torness and Heysham 2 as they near the end of their operating lives.
Prepared by collating external sources, AI-assisted tools, and Geomechanics.io’s proprietary mining database, then reviewed for technical accuracy & edited by our geotechnical team.
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