Huge battery scheme fires M Group to top of April league table

M Group claimed top spot in April’s contractor league table with a sizeable one-off job for SSE Renewables.

The Hertfordshire-headquartered infrastructure giant’s Morrison Energy Services business was named as main contractor on the £300m Monk Fryston battery storage scheme.

The project will create a 320MW system in North Yorkshire capable of retaining the electricity needed to power 500,000 UK homes for two hours at a time.

SSE made a final investment decision to go ahead with the chunky scheme towards the end of last year, and expects to energise the completed infrastructure by the end of 2025.

The single contract was enough to take M Group £50m clear of its nearest rival in April.

Multiplex Construction Europe came in second with a £250m deal to refurbish and extend the former Deutsche Bank headquarters at 75 London Wall.

The scheme will create more than 40,000 square metres of premium office space and includes removing three floors and adding five new levels and outdoor roof terraces.

Backed by investor Castleforge and others, the overhaul targets net-zero carbon in building and operation.

The finished building will offer three trading floors, a 200-seat auditorium and a business lounge close to Liverpool Street Station.

Galliford Try took third place in April’s contractor table, with 13 jobs adding up to almost £240m of work won.

Royal Bam came in fourth with five jobs amounting to nearly £205m, while Vinci rounded up the top five with £187m across six deals.

Fellow contracting giants Willmott Dixon, Wates, Morgan Sindall and Sir Robert McAlpine all made the top 10.

Wates secured the third-largest contract of the month, a £150m mixed-use conversion of the Grand Press printworks at Canada Water in the capital.

This scheme, backed by British Land and Antipodean investment fund AustralianSuper, will create seven floors of sustainability-focused workspace as well as cultural and leisure facilities and a new park.

The project is targeting net-zero status and maximum marks through the BREAAM and NABERS environmental credential initiatives.

RG Group also sneaked into the top 10 with a single win, the £121m Pottery Lane build-to-rent development in Newcastle.

This two-block scheme backed by Olympian Homes and others includes an upgrade of the public realm.

There was no place in April’s top 50 for March’s contract table topper Skanska.

It was beaten into the latest table by the likes of Northern Irish contractor P&K McKaigue, which scooped two deals worth a combined £13.6m.

Top 50 contractors - April 2024 Contractor No Total (£m) M Group 1 300.0 Multiplex Construction Europe 1 250.0 Galliford Try 13 239.6 Royal Bam 5 204.9 Vinci 6 187.0 Willmott Dixon 8 162.3 Wates 1 150.0 Morgan Sindall 23 134.2 Sir Robert McAlpine 5 131.6 RG Group 1 121.0 More joy for Morgan

Morgan Sindall remained comfortable at the top of the rolling annual contractors league table.

The big hitter secured 300 deals in the 12 months to the end of April, totting up to a total of £2.4bn.

This was a third more than its nearest competitor, Royal Bam, which amassed £1.7bn from just 42 contracts.

Multiplex came in third in the annual table, with just seven jobs taking it to £1.5bn.

Top 10 contractors - May 2023 to April 2024 Contractor No Total (£m) Morgan Sindall 300 2,411.2 Royal Bam 42 1,743.9 Multiplex Construction Europe 7 1,526.8 ISG 40 1,434.1 Willmott Dixon 97 1,392.7 Bouygues UK 40 1,343.9 Galliford Try 134 1,342.8 Wates 81 1,322.2 Skanska UK 7 1,170.4 Kier 92 989.8