Social Value
Tideway is one of the UK’s most significant infrastructure programmes, improving the health of the River Thames for future generations while embedding social value through employment, skills and education opportunities across London and creating a model now influencing other major programmes.
Tideway is one of the UK’s largest infrastructure programmes, designed to create a sewer overflow interception system that will serve London’s growing population for at least the next 120 years. This multibillion pound investment also aimed to leave a significant positive legacy: delivering societal value by reconnecting London with the Thames and launching an ambitious legacy programme.
A cornerstone of the legacy programme was a commitment to create employment, skills and education opportunities for Londoners. The project would also benefit from a strategic approach to skills and employment, reducing critical risks related to labour availability while creating opportunities for people to flourish.
Jacobs was instrumental in designing Tideway’s approach to skills and cultivating the right collaborative behaviour across the supply chain to maximise social value. We developed an industry leading Skills, Education and Employment (SEE) strategy.
Through seconded leadership, governance structures, visionary performance metrics, labour forecasting and supply chain alignment, Jacobs helped to create a coherent, accountable system capable of delivering measurable outcomes at scale.
These outcomes were independently quantified as delivering an aggregate additional social value of over £23 million.
What differentiates Tideway from other UK mega projects is not just outcomes, but also the integration of social value in programme controls, budgets and risk management. The programme positioned social value as a strategic lever for workforce stability, industry change and long term societal impact.
The Tideway model has since informed SEE approaches on other major programmes, including the £11bn Transpennine Route Upgrade programme, demonstrating durability, transferability and sustained societal impact.
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