Bumper hospital job propels contractor to top league spot
Bouygues earned more than any other contractor in February after it landed the highly sought-after contract to rebuild Moorfields Eye Hospital in London.
The French firm was locked in as contractor on the £300m scheme last month after it was named as preferred bidder back in November, according to data provided by construction intelligence provider Glenigan.
The project to build the replacement facility, named Oriel (pictured), will include the demolition of seven buildings and the construction of a part-seven-storey and part-10-storey facility.
The project received planning permission from the London Borough of Camden last August, and the completed site is expected to open in 2027.
The project was by far the biggest of three separate contracts won by Bouygues in February, with the total value of all three £302.2m.
This is the first time in seven years that Bouygues has taken first place in the contractor league table, with its dry run stretching back to September 2015. Back then it was spurred to the top spot by its job on phase three of the prolific Battersea Power Station redevelopment.
In 2017 the firm left the scheme after an agreement with the client that it would only complete the preconstruction work. Later that year Sir Robert McAlpine took on the project, which is set to be completed later this year.
| Top 10 contractors, February 2023 | |||
| Rank | Contractor | No | Total (£m) |
| 1 | Bouygues UK | 3 | 302.2 |
| 2 | Morgan Sindall | 19 | 207.6 |
| 3 | Royal Bam | 6 | 197.6 |
| 4 | Balfour Beatty | 4 | 182.0 |
| 5 | Mace | 2 | 165.5 |
| 6 | Vinci | 4 | 136.5 |
| 7 | Kier | 12 | 115.8 |
| 8 | Hill Partnerships | 3 | 104.0 |
| 9 | Jones Bros | 3 | 91.3 |
| 10 | JT Mackley | 1 | 83.5 |
| League tables are subject to revision | |||
Morgan Sindall moved back into a medal position after it secured 19 jobs in total, the largest an £88m project to revamp a rail depot in Beckton, east London. The site, which stores Docklands Light Railway (DLR) trains, will get a new maintenance building as the rail service starts an expansion in 2024.
The work itself should be completed by 2024, while 54 new DLR trains are all expected to be running by 2026.
Vinci, meanwhile, took sixth spot on the back of four jobs, the most high-profile being a £100m project to build an office block in Blackpool. That site, which measures 215,000 square feet in total, will house 3,000 civil servants and is set for completion in March 2025.
The block is part of the wider Talbot Gateway regeneration, which includes a new tram interchange at Blackpool North Station being delivered by Sisk that is currently nearing completion. A new Holiday Inn, built by Robertson, is due to open later this year.
Ninth and tenth places in the February league were occupied by two new league entrants – Welsh civil engineering contractor Jones Bros and West Sussex-based civil engineer JT Mackley & Co. In a joint venture, the two firms scooped a £167m job to build the first largescale new water storage reservoir in the UK since the 1980s.
The new Hampshire reservoir, called the Havant Thicket Reservoir, will be able to hold approximately 8.7 billion litres of water once it is completed in 2029. Glenigan split the value of the contract in half for the league table results.
In the annual league table, Kier kept up its reign at the top, securing 180 jobs worth £3bn.
| Top 10 contractors, year to February 2023 | |||
| Rank | Contractor | No | Total (£m) |
| 1 | Kier | 180 | 2,977.6 |
| 2 | Balfour Beatty | 46 | 2,343.1 |
| 3 | Morgan Sindall | 347 | 2,223.2 |
| 4 | Mace | 24 | 2,197.1 |
| 5 | Wates | 119 | 2,014.0 |
| 6 | ISG | 68 | 1,715.9 |
| 7 | Willmott Dixon | 144 | 1,641.9 |
| 8 | Winvic | 33 | 1,598.4 |
| 9 | JRL | 12 | 1,404.7 |
| 10 | Lendlease | 8 | 1,267.5 |
| League tables are subject to revision | |||
Morgan Sindall jumped two spots to third place, while ISG took sixth, one spot higher than in January.
There were no new entrants in the top-10 annual contractors.