Regional Impacts
Most of the National Nuclear Laboratory’s activity takes place in the North West. Three of its four operating laboratories are in Cumbria (Central, Windscale and Workington Laboratories), while the Preston Laboratory is in Lancashire. In this section we analyse the impact of NNL across these two counties. A brief description of the laboratories is provided below.
Central Laboratory
A state-of-the-art nuclear research facility that is one of the most advanced in the world. It supports new reactor builds and reactor operations, as well as decommissioning, clean-up, and fuel processing plants.
Windscale Laboratory
Unique in the UK, it works with operators to ensure the continued safe running of the country’s nuclear reactors. It can accept, examine and condition materials with a wide range of geometries and masses with activities ranging from those requiring heavy shielding to those with trace activity.
Workington Laboratory
A large non-active industrial space dedicated to operator training and safe design, manufacture, construction, and operation of test rigs
Preston Laboratory
Where most of NNL’s development of the next generation of nuclear fuels takes place, including powder and fuel pellet processing and micro-analysis of the associated material. The laboratory also allows academics to conduct cutting-edge research.
NNL’s GVA contribution in the two counties is set out in Figure 7. NNL generates £69m in GVA in Cumbria and £19m in Lancashire, for a total contribution of £88m – almost half the total UK GVA contribution. The majority of GVA originates from the direct economic impact NNL has, with £57m generated from the laboratory’s day-to-day operations across the two counties. This is not surprising, as NNL makes a large contribution to the local economy through the high salaries it pays its employees. Salaries paid by NNL exceed the local average: the median wage paid by NNL in Cumbria equals £47,000, approximately 50% higher than the overall median wage in the county of £32,000. The median wage NNL pays in Lancashire is £48,000, around 60% above the county median of £30,000. High salaries paid to NNL employees are indicative of the highly productive and skilled nature of the jobs within the laboratory, and have wider spillover benefits for the whole economy as employees spend their wages, encouraging growth and productivity across the region.
Figure 7: NNL GVA contribution in Cumbria, Lancashire and the UK
Figure 8: NNL employment contribution in Cumbria, Lancashire and the UK
NNL’s impact in Cumbria and Lancashire is not limited to GVA, as the laboratory also supports job creation in the region. As we can see in Figure 8, NNL supports 1,110 in Cumbria and 296 jobs in Lancashire, for a total employment contribution of 1,406, or 57% of the total jobs contribution to the UK. About half of the jobs (761) supported arise from the direct employment of employees in NNL’s laboratories and offices, while the rest result from indirect and induced impacts. As previously noted, these represent highly paid and skilled jobs that contribute to the economic growth of the counties, and support the development of knowledge and human capital in the region.