What happened

Bovis has been formally confirmed as main contractor on St Giles Quarter, a £200m mixed use scheme on Museum Street in Bloomsbury, Building reported this week. The job centres on a 19 storey office tower of around 170,000 sq ft, on the site of the former Selkirk House, once a Travelodge hotel next to the British Museum. Around the tower, the scheme restores seven heritage buildings into 44 homes, 19 of them affordable, along with ground floor retail.

Bovis has been on site under a pre construction services agreement since August 2025, working alongside Gardiner & Theobald as project manager and cost consultant, T&T Alinea as quantity surveyor, and Heyne Tillett Steel as structural engineer. Completion is pencilled in for June 2029.

Why it matters

Central London office construction has been patchy this year, but the scheme is a sign that occupiers are still prepared to back large, well located towers close to transport and amenity, even as the wider office market remains selective. For a developer, pairing a heritage led residential element with new build office space is also a template other central London landowners are likely to copy as they try to make stalled sites viable again.

The four year build, from PCSA through to completion, gives the supply chain unusually long notice to plan resourcing, rather than the scramble that comes with a scheme breaking ground at short notice.

What it means for careers and hiring

A scheme of this size and duration means steady work for commercial teams through to 2029: quantity surveyors and project managers on both the contractor and consultant sides, site managers moving from substructure into a multi year superstructure and fit out programme, and M&E specialists once services packages start to let. Gardiner & Theobald and T&T Alinea's involvement from PCSA stage is also a reminder that consultancy roles open well before a contractor's own site team mobilises, so cost and project management professionals looking at central London work should be watching pre construction appointments, not just contract awards, for the earliest signal of where the next wave of jobs will land. Expect Bovis to build out its London team through 2026 and into 2027 as the job moves from enabling works into main structure.