Twenty firms, one long framework

Anglian Water has appointed 20 contractors to a mechanical, electrical and DSEAR maintenance framework worth £301m excluding VAT (£360m including VAT), Construction News and Construction Enquirer reported this week. The framework covers planned and reactive maintenance work across AMP8 and into AMP9, running from 9 November 2026 to 31 March 2035, a span of nearly nine years.

The work is split into lots. The largest, mechanical maintenance, is worth £123m and has 17 suppliers on it. Electrical maintenance is worth £58m across 11 firms, and DSEAR services, covering sites with explosive atmosphere or hazardous substance risks, is worth £18m across seven firms. A fourth lot for higher-value, more complex M&E projects is worth £102m and went to six firms: Amentum, Galliford Try, M Group Water, Quartzelec, Ross-shire Engineering and Veolia Dewatering and Maintenance Solutions.

Why it matters

Maintenance frameworks rarely make headlines the way a new reservoir or treatment works does, but they are where a large share of the water sector's steady, year-round employment actually sits. A nine-year horizon is unusually long for this kind of work, which gives both the appointed firms and their supply chains a clearer basis for taking on and training staff than a framework running two or three years would.

The spread across 20 firms, rather than two or three large incumbents, also means the work is not concentrated in a handful of head offices. Smaller and mid-sized M&E specialists, such as Ross-shire Engineering and Quartzelec, sit alongside larger names like Galliford Try and Amentum, which should keep more of the hiring local to the East of England rather than drawing resource from elsewhere in the country.

What it means for your career

If you are an M&E engineer, maintenance technician or DSEAR-qualified specialist based in the East of England, this framework is worth tracking directly with the appointed firms rather than waiting for individual job ads, since a framework award of this size typically means mobilisation over the following months. Candidates with experience on live water or wastewater assets, rather than new-build only, will have an advantage, because this work is fundamentally about keeping existing plant running.

For quantity surveyors and commercial managers, the split into four lots by value and complexity means there is a range of entry points: smaller, high-volume reactive maintenance contracts need different commercial skills to the £102m projects lot, which will carry more conventional project controls and risk management. Anyone with AMP8 experience already on their CV should expect interest from several of the 20 firms at once, given how much of the UK's water maintenance capacity now sits across their books.