Rachel Lloyd-Moseley, Head of Procurement, Nuclear, explains why and how she has been championing cyber security across the industry.
Every 14 seconds, a business somewhere in the world falls victim to a ransom-ware attack. As technology continues to proliferate, the danger will only increase in the months and years ahead.
"Construction is a particular target," says Rachel. "It’s everything from invoices with bad links through to more complex cyber-attacks."
With Sir Robert McAlpine having been appointed a National Ambassador for the National Cyber Resilience Centre Group, it is Rachel’s job to work with the supply chain to ensure the cyber-resilience of major infrastructure projects. "I like to think we’re helping make UK plc a slightly safer place," she says.
Rachel didn’t start her career in cybersecurity. In fact, she didn’t even start her career in construction. Having studied biological science at university, Rachel graduated in time to catch the cresting wave of the anti-genetically modified food sentiment. "The Government pulled a lot of the funding, so there were no jobs in the sector," she notes, ruefully.
A series of jobs followed, from a spell in recruitment through to managing a pub and working on the back-office software systems for stock markets across the world – "I didn’t really like working in London when my colleagues were in Australia or Los Angeles" – before Rachel eventually went back to university to study site and quantity surveying. Having enrolled on a number of courses throughout her career, Rachel laughs that she now has more letters after her name than in it. "Quite the achievement, considering my name is double barrelled!"
Starting her career in construction in 2001, Rachel was lucky to work on a number of high-profile projects, be it on the ongoing works at Sellafield through to constructing bridges over the M6 and M56. But of the completed projects, her proudest is the Mersey Gateway Bridge, which consumed six-and-a-half-years of her life and was opened by the Queen in 2018. "I actually drove the first private car on the bridge," says Rachel.
Fitting, then, that Rachel was part of the team that worked on the redevelopment of the Dunsfold Racetrack made famous by BBC One’s ‘Top Gear’. And it was here, too, that Rachel first came to realise the importance of cybersecurity when it was discovered, one morning, that the water treatment plant had been hacked.
I got sent a picture of the big red screen of death. We quickly established it didn’t link up to any of our systems. But it did underscore the importance of ensuring our projects are cyber-secure
Rachel Lloyd-Moseley Head of Procurement - Nuclear
Alongside Sir Robert McAlpine’s Chief Information Security Officer, Andy Black, Rachel developed a programme of works to teach cybersecurity skills across not only the company’s supply chain but to competitors and their supply chains, too.
"We found that there were some companies essentially taking advantage of how little the construction industry knows about cybersecurity, pushing them into paying ridiculous amounts of money for training. So, we set out to remedy this; ensuring the appropriate fees are being charged for CRC-accreditation – and more importantly, that it’s presented in plain English, so people can understand step-by-step how to be cyber-resilient."
The work Rachel and Andy have done has been transformative, and indeed groundbreaking for the construction sector – the pair even attended a House of Commons discussion last year on the Cyber Security and Resilience Bill making its way through parliament.
But cybersecurity issues aren’t just relevant to the workplace, warns Rachel. Its threats loom large even at home. "If I could give all readers one piece of advice," says Rachel, "it’s change your home WiFi password. If you’re using the one that’s stuck on the back of the router, there will be details of that password stored on a computer somewhere, which means it could be compromised in a cyber-breach."
After all, Rachel is all too aware of the dangers. One company boss she is aware of, confident that he couldn’t be hacked, challenged a group of teenagers, under the guidance of the CRC, to find out what they could about him. In less than 24 hours, they had accessed his work servers, work bank accounts, his personal bank accounts, camera system and more, all by gaining access through his home router as the password was found on the dark web.
But that’s not her only advice. For young women considering a career in construction, she is no less enthusiastic and supportive: "Go for it! It’s not just digging holes and filling them in with concrete", she jokes. "It can also be working high off the ground with aircraft passing incredibly close overhead."
"When it comes to procurement, buying every day for major projects is incredibly rewarding. And on public projects you’re spending taxpayers’ money, so it is absolutely vital to ensure value for money. It’s an absolutely fabulous job and one, years ago, I would never have imagined doing: I expected to spend my whole life in a lab coat."
Her experience in construction hasn’t always been fantastic, however. At the start of her career, Rachel experienced significant misogyny and sexism. "I was referred to as the tea lady or the receptionist, which are essential and noble roles in their own right, but it meant I had to work that bit harder to be heard and earn the respect of my male peers," she says. "I’ve worked hard and every time I was given a glass ceiling I decided to go and break it."
Things have changed, significantly, with younger male colleagues and those just entering the sector having different attitudes, prepared to respect their female colleagues' perspectives and insights. And though this is not the end of the road – work still needs to be done to improve attitudes towards older women in the workplace – as we mark International Women’s Day 2025, construction can reflect on the progress it has achieved to date and the changes that still need to be made towards true equity.
From the design and construction of the UK’s original fleet of nuclear power stations, through a continued presence at Sellafield between 1984 and 2017, to the provision of civil design services for Sizewell B, Hunterston B, and Hinkley B, we have a proud history of delivering projects in the nuclear industry.
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