When appointed as Chief Executive of HS2 Ltd in December 2024, Mark Wild committed to getting the project’s costs under control and exploring all opportunities to open Britain’s new railway as soon as possible.
Understanding the scale of progress on the ground, and exactly what was left to do, was the first vital step. Detailed assessments and analysis confirmed the civil engineering was out of sequence and behind schedule. As Mark made clear in his initial advice to the Transport Secretary, opening of the railway between Old Oak Common and Curzon Street could not be achieved in the target window of 2029/33.
The project needed a fundamental overhaul, with revised cost and schedule ranges, a new programme baseline (the standard against which project performance is measured over time), and importantly, more stringent cost, risk, and project control measures.
The process of ‘resetting’ HS2 began in earnest in spring 2025, and revised cost and schedule ranges are now being prepared for government.
Falling out of sequence...
Across the HS2 route there are standout civil engineering achievements. The recently completed Colne Valley viaduct is a masterpiece of infrastructure design. But construction has not kept pace with schedule – earthworks in particular have fallen behind.
To compound the problem, the variance in progress across the 350 sites between London and Birmingham means some areas are further ahead than others, but not necessarily those that need completing first to make construction efficient and cost effective.
In short, HS2’s building blocks are out of sequence, and this needs correcting. One of the critical lessons learned from Crossrail is that there should be a clean handover between civil engineering and fitting out the railway with systems, such as tracks and power supplies. The two must not be built in the same space at the same time as this slows progress and adds risk.
...and putting the building blocks back in order
Getting on track means resetting the schedule – working backwards from the opening of the railway and understanding every process and step that needs to happen to achieve a working railway at the lowest reasonable cost and earliest practicable date. Works must be sequenced accordingly; ensuring every work package is delivered in the right order at the right time to drive productivity. It also provides clarity to suppliers – so they will know when they are needed, where and for what.
The four-year financial settlement, as part of the government’s recent Spending Review, helps to address the building blocks challenge. The funding commitment facilitates longer-term planning and the ability to dial up and dial down works at different points along the route to bring construction back into the right sequence.
There are difficult decisions to make. Resources must be poured into areas which are lagging behind, and every pound in the ground must count towards progress.
The current position means there is a competing requirement to fast-track and slow down. In some areas, this means civil engineering must be slowed or brought to a standstill while other sites catch up. Pausing work is not ideal, but HS2 must have opening dates and cost ranges that are both clear and achievable, and it must manage resources efficiently.
Prioritising Old Oak Common to Curzon Street
The opening schedule for HS2, which is set by government, envisages trains running between Curzon Street in central Birmingham to Old Oak Common in west London. Old Oak Common will be the temporary London terminus until Euston is ready for HS2 services. As with Crossrail, which had a staged opening, this opening pattern will not be the final configuration for HS2. But it will ensure that the benefits of fast and reliable travel between Britain’s two biggest cities are realised as early as possible.
Prioritising the opening strategy means that some civil engineering works, which fall outside of the Curzon Street to Old Oak Common area, will be slowed. This explains the recent pause on most works on the Main Line North towards Handsacre, which we have just extended for a further four years, and on secondary works supporting the London tunnel network.
This prioritisation schedule reflects the planned opening ranges that are currently being prepared for government, which will ultimately see HS2 services extend to the north of England and Scotland, with departures and arrivals at London Euston.
The rescheduling of works is an important first step in demonstrating the improved control measures and prioritisation plans that are now in place.
Pausing works also creates the financial headroom to speed up construction on other areas of the route which have fallen behind, such as the central section, across Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and Northamptonshire.
In this area, extreme weather conditions have severely hampered progress on the major earthworks programme. The winter of 2023–24 was the UK’s wettest on record, with nine named storms and flooding leading to serious disruption. Conversely, the spring and summer of 2025 have been the driest in more than 50 years, which has significantly boosted productivity.
The weather is of course beyond HS2’s control, but we must seek to maximise the ground we have made over the last year into 2026, with a view to completing earthworks on this section of the route by mid 2027/early 2028.
Resetting HS2, in line with the current funding settlement, means the milestones over the coming years are becoming clear. Civil engineering works should close out within the four-year timeframe, ready for the complex introduction of all 17 contracts that make up the Rail Systems Alliance – adding the power, tracks, signalling, and communications that will ultimately drive the operational railway.
Being more productive
How construction progress is managed and monitored has been vastly overhauled over the last eight months. Real-time information tracks progress, and a new traffic light system quickly indicates if interventions are needed to stay on track.
This collaborative approach with our joint venture partners gives a renewed confidence to the assumptions driving the new cost and schedule ranges.
Across the supply chain, there is a unified commitment to delivering the opening stage of HS2 safely and as soon as practicably possible.
