Rolls-Royce SMR unveils Derby manufacturing centre for small reactors

Rolls-Royce SMR unveiled Pioneer Works in Derby on 29 June 2026, its first manufacturing development centre and a deliberately non-nuclear site built to sort out how its small modular reactor fleet will actually be assembled, tested and delivered. The centre is meant to de-risk deployment in the UK, the Czech Republic and Sweden, with opening planned for the fourth quarter of 2026.

Pioneer Works will establish the build processes, precision assembly methods and advanced testing routines needed to move the reactor design from engineering package to industrial production. Rolls-Royce SMR’s SMR is a standard pressurised water reactor rated at 470MWe, and each station is designed to power about a million homes for at least 60 years. The new centre will sit alongside the EXPERI site at the University of Sheffield Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre, where modular assembly, prototyping and delivery work is already under way.

The investment is £12 million, and the site will create and sustain around 40 long-term jobs as it scales up. Those roles are expected to span advanced engineering, welding, testing, precision assembly and manufacturing development, with the centre also used to train the next generation of nuclear manufacturing specialists.

The UK government named the company preferred bidder in June 2025 for the country’s first SMR fleet, then Great British Energy - Nuclear signed a contract in April 2026 to begin technology design activities. The National Wealth Fund has committed up to £599 million to support development, and the UK government says the first UK SMR project is expected to support around 3,000 jobs at peak construction.

In June 2026, Swedish developer Videberg Kraft selected Rolls-Royce SMR to supply three reactors for a project on the Värö Peninsula near Ringhals, while the company has also been working with ČEZ on deployment and localisation in the Czech Republic.