Emma-Jane Houghton is a new commercial director at AWE

The former commercial boss of the government's plans to build 40 new hospitals has taken up a new role at UK's nuclear deterrent research centre.

Emma-Jane Houghton, who was appointed to the New Hospitals Programme in late 2020, has taken up a commercial director role at AWE -  the Ministry of Defence's research facility that provides and maintains the warheads for the country’s nuclear deterrent.

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Source: Tom Campbell

Emma-Jane Houghton was with the New Hospitals Programme for two years

AWE also assists the UK Government in developing and delivering a range of innovative and integrated support services, including national nuclear security and counter-terrorism solutions.

>> Meet the person charged with delivering 40 hospitals in nine years

In a LinkedIn post Houghton, who was previously the commercial director for the expansion of Heathrow Airport, said she was "happy to share" that she was taking up the new role, which will see her working on the UK Fissile Programme.

She is also a major in the British Army’s engineering advisory group.

In her time with the New Hospitals Programme, Houghton, who is a commissioner on the Building the Future Commission, set up the commercial frameworks for procuring the 40 new hospitals the government has promised to build by 2030.

The hospitals are being delivered via a framework alliance with industry. The hope is the supply chain can be set up horizontally with the idea that every level of the chain will be feeding back into the client more often and that the “collective learnings” can be applied across the programme.