New contracts have been signed – here’s a roundup of the major contracts awarded in the last month.
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National Grid has launched a £12.77bn, multi-year HVDC Major Works & Civils Framework to support its high-voltage direct current rollout, enabling the connection of up to 50 GW of offshore wind by 2030.
The framework is divided into two lots: a £9.07bn converter station civils package awarded to Balfour Beatty, Bam Nuttall, Galliford Try, Laing O’Rourke, Skanska, and Taylor Woodrow; and a £3.7bn onshore cable civils package awarded to Balfour Beatty, J. Murphy & Sons, and VolkerFitzpatrick.
Contracts have been secured for a five-year period, with the potential to extend for a further three years.
National Grid has also launched the £8bn Electricity Transmission Partnership (ETP), a new framework to deliver around 130 substation projects across England and Wales by 2031. The model gives regional delivery partners long-term exclusivity to encourage supply-chain investment and skills growth, forming a core part of National Grid’s wider £35bn RIIO-T3 investment plan.
The regional partners are Balfour Beatty, Murphy, Morgan Sindall Infrastructure, M Group Energy, and an Omexom/Taylor Woodrow joint venture (OTW JV).
Linxon and Burns & McDonnell have been appointed as national partners.
An initial £1.3bn allocation will be awarded at a later stage.
Technip Energies has appointed Balfour Beatty as construction partner on the £833 million Net Zero Teesside Power project, the world’s first gas-fired power station with carbon capture. The scheme will deliver a 742MW low-carbon plant capable of powering over one million homes while capturing two million tonnes of CO₂ annually.
Main works will start later in 2025, with completion slated for 2028.
Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM) has initiated a procurement process – valued at up to £1.6bn – for a multi-year (up to 12 years) contract starting in 2027 to maintain and expand the Metrolink light rail network and improve rail accessibility across Greater Manchester.
The scope includes new asset renewals (like track, overhead lines, power distribution), potential new and upgraded stops, line extensions, next-generation tram infrastructure, and schemes such as Access for All and Travel Hubs, with initial supplier engagement underway through market consultation sessions.
The South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority (SYMCA) has awarded a 15-year Technology Partner Framework Agreement to Hitachi Rail. The deal, worth part of SYMCA’s wider £110 million investment programme by 2027, will modernise the Supertram network through core system renewals and digital upgrades to improve reliability and passenger experience.
Cambridge County Council, via the Greater Cambridge Partnership (GCP), has awarded a design-and-build contract worth £28.6m to C Spencer Ltd to deliver a relocated Waterbeach railway station – roughly 2.4km north of the existing site – to support 11,000 new homes in the emerging Waterbeach New Town.
Once completed (targeted by 2027), the station will transfer to Network Rail for operation, with Great Northern continuing as the service operator.
Great Western Railway has signed a £75m, eight-year agreement with Alstom for technical support and spare parts for the 26 Class 175 diesel multiple units due to enter service in South West England later this year.
National Highways has launched early market engagement for its £8bn Maintenance and Response 2 (M&R2) programme, which will replace existing contracts for the Strategic Road Network from 2028.
Covering over 4,500 miles of motorways and major A roads, the eight-year contracts (with a possible one-year extension) will include maintenance, incident response, severe weather services, roadside technology, and asset renewals.
Procurement is expected to begin in July 2027, with contracts starting in March 2028.
National Highways has also awarded Sopra Steria a one-year, £7.5m extension to its National Traffic Information Service (NTIS) contract, taking the deal’s total value since 2021 to around £49.2m.
The extension will continue Sopra Steria’s role until January 2027.
Transport Scotland has begun procurement for the £205m upgrade of a stretch of the A9 between Pitlochry and Killiecrankie, with design work led by Jacobs.
Due to be complete by the end of 2030, this will be the third section delivered under the A9 Dualling Programme and will take nearly half of the route between Perth and Inverness to dual carriageway.
The procurement notice follows shortly after the Scottish Government confirmed last month that it had awarded the neighbouring Tay Crossing-Ballinluig section to Wills Bros Civil Engineering.
Ealing Council has launched the £1.03bn Highways and Transport Framework 2025, open to all London boroughs, to run from November 2025 to November 2029. The framework is divided into four consultancy lots: general engineering (£729m, up to five suppliers), flood management (£158.4m, two suppliers), bridge inspections (£39.6m, single supplier), and road condition monitoring (£39.6m, single supplier).
Services will cover areas such as asset management, traffic modelling, structural design, flood risk strategies, and highways condition surveys.
Appointments are to be made via a two-stage process in October 2025. Find more information here.
Southern Water has appointed Kier – marking its first contract under the Strategic Delivery Partner Framework for AMP8 – with an Early Contractor Involvement deal worth £15.8m.
The contract covers early-stage design and planning for nitrogen reduction work at Portswood Wastewater Treatment Works near Southampton and a UV disinfection system at Thornham Wastewater Treatment Works near Havant.
Find more information here.
The Crown Commercial Service (CCS) has launched the £1.7 billion Management Consultancy Framework Four (MCF4), running for two years to July 2027 and replacing the £3.6 billion MCF3.
Covering 10 lots, including infrastructure, procurement, supply chain, and environment, the framework provides consultancy services to UK government departments, local authorities, and housing associations. Under the infrastructure lot, 45 firms were appointed.
Find a full list of the successful firms here.
Peel Ports Group has launched a plan to develop a new deep-water Southern Terminal at the Port of Great Yarmouth.
The investment is aimed at meeting rising demand from major onshore and offshore infrastructure and energy projects – including Sizewell C and Southern North Sea developments.
Peel Ports is targeting early 2026 for securing planning approval to press ahead with the expansion.
The Ministry of Defence has confirmed the first tranche of projects under its £1.1bn Single Living Accommodation (SLA) framework, which will deliver nearly 1,800 new bedspaces across 10 UK sites.
The programme is led by the Defence Infrastructure Organisation and involves alliance members Bowmer & Kirkland, Reds10, Kier Metek, and Laing O’Rourke, with allocations including major schemes at RM Condor, Albemarle Barracks, and RAF Waddington.
SMBL, a subsidiary of Mitsui Fudosan UK Ltd, has appointed Mace as construction manager for the £1.1bn redevelopment of the British Library’s St Pancras site. The scheme – including a 100,000sq ft extension for new exhibition, event, and learning spaces, plus over 600,000sq ft of life-science-focused commercial facilities – forms part of a larger project also incorporating Crossrail 2 infrastructure and managed by Stanhope plc.
Construction is scheduled to begin in 2026, with a six-year delivery timeline, aiming for completion around 2030.
