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.

The Construction Plant-hire Association and the Chartered Institute of Building have formed the Construction Growth Coalition with other trade bodies to coordinate a single industry voice to UK government. The coalition is targeting policy influence on infrastructure pipelines, planning and skills, with a particular focus on small and medium-sized contractors and plant-hire firms that dominate the supply chain. For geotechnical and civil contractors, this could affect visibility of future groundworks demand, investment in specialist plant, and workforce training priorities.