Sport centre revamp drives Morgan Sindall to top league spot

Morgan Sindall jumped ahead of its nearest rivals to take the gold medal in the May contracts league.

The contractor took 18 jobs in total during the month worth a combined £619.6m, outstripping its nearest rival by more than £200m.

Its biggest contract was a £130m job to redevelop the National Sport Centre in Crystal Palace (pictured) for the Greater London Authority, according to data compiled by construction intelligence firm Glenigan.

Work on the upgrade is scheduled to be completed by 2028 and will include the full reconstruction of the centre’s 50-metre swimming and diving pools, along with improvements to indoor and outdoor sporting facilities.

Morgan Sindall previously topped the monthly table last August, but the tier one firm has been in and out of the top 10 in the months since.

May was also a big month for Spanish contractor Acciona, which appeared in the top 10 monthly contractor table for only the second time.

The firm seized the silver medal after taking fourth place in March 2019.

Acciona scooped a single £400m contract to improve Thames Water’s Coppermills Water Treatment Works in east London.

The upgrade work – which will fit the site with a new electricity substation, a new high-life pumping station and a sand filter recirculation system – is set to begin next spring and last for seven years in total.

Thames Water said the upgrade would “improve the site’s capacity to meet the needs of customers, with the site responsible for supplying water to Londoners”.

There were also some firsts in May, with Greek energy contractor Metlen entering the fray at fifth place in its first ever appearance in the league table.

Metlen scored three contracts with a combined value of £146.3m, but was buoyed in particular by a job to build a solar farm in Benthead, Scotland, valued by Glenigan at £100m.

The 84.5 megawatt solar park should be developed by the end of 2026, Metlen said when it was appointed to the project.

Sixth-placed Mace, meanwhile, picked up three contracts worth a combined £142m. The largest by far was its £126m job to deliver a research hub for the Natural History Museum.

The facility will provide purpose-built storage for 28 million specimens, and is due for completion in 2027, with full operation expected by 2031.

Once finished the site will measure 25,000 square metres and will house a third of the museum’s collections, including mammals, fossilised specimens, corals and other non-insect invertebrates.

Bovis Construction (formerly Lendlease), took ninth spot after a £100m job to revamp Crystal Palace FC’s stadium was confirmed. Last month, Morrisroe said in its accounts that it scooped demolition and enabling works on the Selhurst Park site as a subcontractor to Bovis.

The job will deliver a new 13,000-seat main stand for the Premier League team.

The FA Cup winners got the go-ahead for the project last August. Selhurst Park’s capacity will increase from 25,486 to more than 34,000.

Three tiers of seating will be added, as well as a new club shop, museum and cafe, plus improved access for supporters with disabilities. The facility has also been designed to be net-zero in operation.

Morgan Sindall did not do the double, though, losing out on the annual league tables to Kier by around £300m. Kier leads the annual leagues for the third month in a row.

In total, the contractor took on 109 jobs in the year to May 2025, worth a combined £3bn.

Morgan Sindall signed on the dotted line 266 times last year and took on £2.7bn worth of work in the past 12 months.

Mace – which was not in the top 10 at all in April – soared to fourth place, followed closely by Laing O’Rourke in fifth, which itself rose five places.

Two other tier ones returned to the rolling annual league table – McLaren in eighth place and Graham in tenth.