Laing O’Rourke lands top spot with £450m airport contract

A mammoth £450m deal to transform Terminal Two at Manchester airport has launched Laing O’Rourke to the top of both contractor tables for August. The contractor also bagged a £100m contract to build a test centre for Jaguar Land Rover in Gaydon, Warwickshire, taking its tally to £550m last month.

In terms of total contract value, the haul means Laing O’Rourke is £350m ahead of second placed Kier, who took the runner-up spot on both tables after winning 52 contracts across the commercial, housing, public, civils and industrial sectors. It was also another good month for Scottish-based Robertson Group, which rounds out podium places on both tables with 10 jobs worth £108m.

The total includes a £40m deal to build an office, residential and hotel scheme in Dundee – right next to the controversial delayed V&A museum – as part of the £1bn redevelopment of the city’s waterfront.

Shortly before its rebrand to Multiplex, Brookfield Multiplex took fourth place on both tables with a £100m contract to knock down and redevelop an office block in Whitechapel, east London, turning it into a mixed-use 19-storey commercial building.

But the contract was not enough for Multiplex to take fourth outright, with Carillion sharing the position after bagging a £100m deal for two high-rise residential towers on the Embankment waterfront regeneration scheme in Manchester.

Balfour Beatty won £99m worth of civil engineering deals to take sixth on the overall table, with Galliford Try sixth on the table without civils after winning contracts to build projects, including a £43m retirement village in Bristol and £27m worth of new houses on Peabody’s estate in Tower Hamlets.