Amec climbs to top yet again

The CJ40 League records the competitive positions of the industry's leading players. Tables are based on a monthly analysis of the UK's major building and civil engineering contracts secured in competition or by negotiation.

Only contracts over œ500,000 are included and care is taken to exclude speculative housebuilding and property development which generate workload not won in competition.

Management contracts are included but, when packages are sublet by the client as in construction management, only management fees are included.

Subcontracts for M&E services and minor internal finishing are not included; subcontracts for work forming the shell of a building or foundations are included.

Data provided by contractors is verifiable and based on identifiable contracts. There is no distortion due to time overlaps. Published tables are corrected retrospectively without notice when any figures are obtained too late for publication. Revised data is then used in subsequent quarterly and annual tables.

Neither the publishers of CJ nor the compilers of the data can be held responsible for readers' interpretations nor for any reliance they place on the data.

Specific details about many individual contracts, upon which CJ40 League tables are based, are commercially confidential and cannot be disclosed.

Requests for additional information, commentary, explanations about the tables or longer term trends should be sent in writing to: CJ40 Editor, Contract Journal, Quadrant House, Sutton, Surrey SM2 5AS (or fax 081 307 7696).

Amec continues to cling to the top of the tree in the CJ40 League despite stiff competition from other high climbers.

The group's position has proved unshakable over the past six months and it is still enjoying the highest monthly intake of new œ500,000-plus building and civil engineering contracts in the UK.

April's successes were typical of Amec's recent record, with gains in the private industrial sector reaching nearly œ60 million, boosting the group's monthly total to œ84 million.

John Laing, in second place, was œ2 million short of reaching the top in April. But it boasted the strongest performance in the private commercial sector, with œ78 million. This boosted its monthly total to œ82 million, the firm's best overall showing since January.

John Mowlem also had its best month since January, but its April total of œ80 million was spread over a wider mix of contracts. Gains which earned Mowlem third place were as diverse as the reconstruction of Elland House, part of a œ40 million Westminster scheme which Mowlem is managing for Land Securities, the œ15m Rochdale prison and œ10m first phase of the Coventry north-south road.

April's biggest single contract was the œ60 million of stations and tunnels for the Heathrow express rail link, awarded to fourth-placed Balfour Beatty. This contributed the lion's share of the BICC subsidiary's œ80 million total.

Making the most impressive gains in the water sector was Taylor Woodrow, in fourth place with a œ67 million total, where Hanningfield water treatment works and Stoke Bardolph sewerage improvements contributed around œ26 million.

The biggest public authority non-infrastructure job was the œ24 million Westminster University campus scheme at Harrow. Tarmac clinched this D&B deal at the end of the month, just in time to snatch sixth place with a œ55 million total.

Geoffrey Osborne was inexplicably absent from the CJ40 League table for March, despite a œ5.88 million total. The firm improved its position again in April and, helped by a œ2.5 office contract for the Civil Service Motoring Association, achieved 33rd place, with a œ6.5 million total.

Compiled by Ken Smith