“Today’s welcome news provides the next foundation stone towards nuclear new build becoming a reality,” said Mike Graham, National Secretary of the union representing 15,000 scientists, engineers and specialists in the nuclear and radioactive waste management industry.

“Not only is this fantastic news for the UK economy, but also a necessity in order for the UK to meet the twin challenges of climate change and energy security. It will buck the current trend in relation to jobs and employment by giving local people opportunities and local jobs. Let’s exploit it to the advantage of the UK supply chain and local communities.

“This decision will open the door to thousands of manufacturing and construction jobs in the near future. The new power stations are due to be up and running by 2017 and will also create highly skilled jobs for more than 65 years – for this, the next and future generations. There will be further jobs created for contractors responsible for outage and maintenance in the new power stations.”

Prospect estimates that each new nuclear power station built in the UK will create 500-600 permanent, skilled jobs.