UK defence planners are developing contingency plans to protect critical national infrastructure in the event of future conflict, following parliamentary questions on the vulnerability of power grids, transport networks and communications hubs. An MP raised specific concerns about the growing integration of artificial intelligence into CNI control systems, including automated grid management and traffic signalling, and the risk of hostile cyber or physical attacks exploiting these dependencies. Civil and structural engineers may face tighter resilience requirements, more redundancy in control architectures and closer coordination with defence and cyber-security agencies.

The Northern Territory Government has released a 10‑year workforce development strategy to support 29,000 projected new jobs driven by mining, energy and infrastructure investment between 2026 and 2036. The “Building a Bigger, Better Workforce: Northern Territory Workforce Development Strategy 2026–2036” focuses on coordinated attraction, training and retention measures to supply operators, trades, engineers and technical specialists for expanding resources projects. For mine owners and contractors, the plan signals sustained competition for skilled labour and the need to align site-based training and apprenticeship pipelines with Territory programmes.

Former Australian prime minister and International Hydropower Association president Malcolm Turnbull is urging the UK Government and Ofgem to create dedicated funding mechanisms to unlock investment in large-scale pumped energy storage schemes. He is targeting long-duration storage projects that can shift surplus offshore wind and solar over multi-hour to multi-day periods, rather than short-duration lithium-ion batteries. For civil and geotechnical teams, this signals potential demand for new high-head reservoirs, underground caverns, pressure tunnels and large-diameter penstocks if bankable revenue models are put in place.