Top 100 contractors: Last year’s market leaders and 2025’s ones to watch

Morgan Sindall claimed first place in the 2024 Top 100 Contractors league table, winning an impressive £3 billion worth of construction work.

The company secured the top spot in the 2024 Top 100 Contractors league table for the second consecutive year, achieving an impressive 37% growth in its order book compared to the 2023 total of £2.2 billion

The group’s work ranged from a £144.7 million refurb deal at 2 Broadgate in the City of London secured by fit-out arm Overbury (Project ID: 24309677) to a £120 million regeneration of the Elm Grove housing estate in Sutton (pictured) won by social housing subsidiary Lovell (Project ID: 23333440).

BAM Double up

Royal BAM was just pipped to the top spot despite more than doubling its annual order book to £2.9 billion compared to £1.4 billion in 2023, when the group was ranked sixth.

Royal BAM’s work ranged from major building schemes including the £162.7 million 3 Copper Square office development at Brent Cross in north London (Project ID: 22232637) to civil engineering jobs such as the £60 million Narrow Water Bridge at Newry in Northern Ireland (Project ID: 12087264).

Winvic weigh in

Winvic has a reputation as one of the UK’s top warehouse contractors, and a £500 million Amazon fulfilment centre scheme in Northampton (Project ID: 21280277) helped the company maintain third place.

Winvic also had success with major jobs in other sectors including the £250 million Symmetry Park research scheme in Oxford (Project ID: 21390418) and the £100 million 360 Bristol student accommodation development (Project ID: 20170826).

Kier Royal

The last contractor to top Glenigan’s annual top 100 before Morgan Sindall’s recent run of success was Kier in 2022. Last year, Kier was third behind Morgan Sindall and Galliford Try in terms of the number of contracts won but ran in sixth with an order book just under £1.4 billion.

Kier’s biggest success in 2024 was the £250 million Kirkby Thore and Warcop roads scheme in Cumbria (Project ID: 20170800).

The firm also won a swathe of major building jobs including the £110 million first phase of the University of Southampton’s North East Quadrant development (Project ID: 21266663) and a £100 million hangar scheme for the Royal Naval Air Squadron at Culdrose in Cornwall (Project ID: 23138900).

Back in style

Multiplex Construction Europe returned to the upper echelons of the annual Top 100 in the fifth spot after landing £1.4 billion worth of work in 2024.

The company’s strategy is to take on major projects, predominantly in the commercial sector and often in London.

This paid off in 2024 with major contract awards on the 50 Fenchurch Street office scheme in the City of London (Project ID: 19410738) and a £500 million redevelopment of London Television Centre in Lambeth (Project ID: 9140477).

New beginning pays off

Octavius Infrastructure is one of the highest-ranked new entries and finished 2024 in 31^st position after securing £349 million worth of work.

Formerly the civil engineering division of Geoffrey Osborne, which crashed into administration last year, this business split off in 2021 and rebranded as Octavius the following year.

Since then, Octavius has established a strong reputation in the roads sector, where successes last year included the £49 million Long Stratton bypass scheme in Norfolk (Project ID: 21344322).

Busy big boys

With 10 contractors ending 2024 with order books of £1 billion or more – up from nine companies a year ago – the industry’s big players are looking busy.