Two big jobs at the prison took Wates to the top of the contractors’ league table in November.
The Surrey-based company secured the £300m deal for a 1,700-inmate prison in Leicestershire after communities secretary Michael Gove approved the plan last month.
Wates also secured a £93m job to build a block at HMP Hindley in Wigan.
Three more contracts won during the month took the company to a strong total of £486.9m and top of the table.
Second-placed Morgan Sindall was almost £100m behind with £394.9m of work won in November, although it gained a whopping 22 jobs, taking it to 53 in the last two months
Kent-based RG Group came third in value due to a single £192m student accommodation project in east London. The company will build a 36-storey tower in Stratford to provide more than 700 beds for students.
Meanwhile, Galliford Try was second in volume of work after picking up 11 programs worth £76.7m. The Uxbridge contractor has now secured 137 deals in the past 12 months, second only to Morgan Sindall’s 338.
Balfour Beatty, which topped the monthly contract table in October, dropped out of the top 50 just as September winner Multiplex failed to make the cut in the final round.
The UK’s biggest contractor by turnover was also topped in the ongoing annual league, with Morgan Sindall securing £2.4bn of work last year.
Balfour was second on £2.2bn, while the latest addition of Wates took it into third place on £1.8bn.
| Top 50 Contractors – November 2023 | |||
| contractor | No | Total (£m) | |
| 1 | limit | 5 | 486.9 |
| 2 | Morgan Sindall | 22 | 394.9 |
| 3 | Group RG | 1 | 192.0 |
| 4 | Sir Robert McAlpine | 2 | 125.3 |
| 5 | Ardmore | 2 | 125.0 |
| 6 | Tilbury Douglas | 6 | 124.7 |
| 7 | JJ Ratigan | 1 | 100.0 |
| 8 | X Build | 1 | 85.0 |
| 9 | Kier | 4 | 77.7 |
| 10 | Try Galliford | 11 | 76.7 |
A total of £3.1bn of work was awarded in November, the vast majority in the construction sector, with only £149m of civil works signed. The total value of deals delivered last month was up from the same period last year even though 30 fewer deals were signed.
Notable deals include Sir Robert McAlpine winning the £110m Arundel Castlefield mixed-use scheme in Manchester. Site clearance is expected to begin early in the new year, ahead of the project to create two new buildings and convert an existing structure to house 355 apartments plus retail space in the city’s Castlefield district.
Elsewhere, Tilbury Douglas picked up an £80m care campus at Catterick Garrison in North Yorkshire and Ardmore won the £75m Hackney Yards scheme, which will provide 190 homes, including 31 affordable rents and 46 intended for shared ownership.
Multiplex Construction Europe rounded out the annual top 10 table with the fewest jobs, just six deals totaling £1.2bn and placing it in ninth place for work won.
| Top 50 contractors: December 2022 to November 2023 | |||
| contractor | No | Total (£m) | |
| 1 | Morgan Sindall | 338 | 2,415.0 |
| 2 | Balfour Beatty | 53 | 2,179.1 |
| 3 | limit | 131 | 1,831.5 |
| 4 | Kier | 109 | 1,660.8 |
| 5 | Royal BAM | 46 | 1,535.7 |
| 6 | Try Galliford | 137 | 1,505.8 |
| 7 | mace | 21 | 1,463.8 |
| 8 | Willmott Dixon | 88 | 1,185.7 |
| 9 | Construction Multiplex Europe | 6 | 1,166.8 |
| 10 | ISG | 41 | 1,063.2 |
