Strabag storms to league summit with £2.9bn aqueduct revamp

Strabag soared to the top spot in the August league tables thanks to a mammoth aqueduct job in the North West.

The contractor scooped the £2.9bn job from United Utilities last month, which will see it upgrade six tunnel sections of the Haweswater Aqueduct. The aqueduct is a crucial artery in the North West, and carries drinking water from the Lake District into Greater Manchester.

Strabag was named on the project alongside London-based investor Equitix and infrastructure fund GLIL Infrastructure, which together make up Cascade Infrastructure Ltd.

The 10-year project – which has been split into five contracts – took Strabourg single-handledly to the top of the league tables for August and to number one in the annual league tables too, according to construction data provider Glenigan.

It is the first time Strabag has topped Construction News’ monthly league table since it was first published in 2011.

The size of the contract left the firm sitting head and shoulders above its nearest competitor, with a gap of £2.2bn separating them.

Strabag was not the only contractor to benefit from a single mammoth job, after a bumper contract to redevelop the British Library kept Mace in the silver medal position for the second month running.

According to Glenigan, the contract itself is worth £700m, with a gross development value of £1.1bn.

It will see Mace add a 9,290 square metre extension to the British Library plus 55,742 square metres of commercial facilities.

The commercial space will be dedicated to labs and offices for the life sciences sector. Room will be provided for a new headquarters for the Alan Turing Institute, if a move is agreed.

McLaren returned to the league tables after a month out, taking the bronze medal with its best performance since April. It signed on the dotted line twice in August, to the tune of £380m.

The biggest job it scooped in August was the £280m contract to build a new 16,500-seater arena and 182-room hotel in Cardiff.

The venue is scheduled to open in 2028 and is expected to attract more than one million visitors each year. Client Cardiff Council said the site will create 1,000 new jobs once it is complete.

Bouygues, meanwhile, took fifth spot with four jobs in total. The largest of those was a project to build Cambridge Children’s Hospital, which Glenigan valued at £214.9m.

The 35,000 square metre hospital, which will span six primary floors, will include air source heat pumps and photovoltaic cells, and is aiming to reach BREEAM Excellent rating.

August marked a landmark month for Irish contractor Bennett, which made its first ever foray into the league tables. A £116.3m job to develop 326 flats and additional commercial units in London pushed it into tenth spot.

While Strabag was the surprise package atop both league tables, the rolling annual table was largely made up of the usual suspects.

Mace jumped from fifth to third place, with a total of 15 jobs valued at £2.4bn, and Balfour Beatty took seventh spot after missing out entirely on the top 10 in July’s table.

The contractor scooped 50 jobs in the year to August 2025, worth £1.8bn. The vast majority of that work was in the civils sector, according to Glenigan.

Graham missed out entirely on the league tables last month, but squeezed into the top 10 with 26 jobs worth a combined £1.4bn.