Kier has been appointed on a pre-construction services agreement for a job believed to be worth around £65m to retrofit Red Lion Square's Fenner building in Holborn for developer Railpen, Building and Construction News reported this week. Kier beat four rival bidders to the role, which is its first contract for Railpen, the body that manages the £36bn railways pension scheme.

The Fenner job involves overhauling around 100,000 sq ft of office space across eight floors, adding new roof terraces and ground floor amenities. Kier is expected to start on site by the end of the year, with completion set for late 2028.

Why it matters

This is a retrofit, not a rebuild, and that distinction is becoming the defining feature of the London office market. Railpen is running a wider programme covering 600,000 sq ft of commercial space across London and Birmingham, and the Fenner is one part of that. Landlords with ageing stock are increasingly choosing to strip back and overhaul existing buildings rather than demolish and start again, both for cost reasons and to meet tightening embodied carbon expectations.

For Kier, winning a first contract from a client the size of Railpen, against four competitors, extends a run of London commercial wins that sits alongside its record order book reported earlier this year. It also confirms that retrofit and refurbishment work, rather than new-build office towers, is where a meaningful share of the capital's commercial pipeline now sits.

What it means for careers and hiring

Retrofit contracts like the Fenner need a different mix of skills to a ground-up build: structural engineers comfortable working around an existing frame, M&E teams retrofitting modern services into Victorian or 1980s floorplates, and sustainability specialists who can evidence the embodied carbon savings that clients like Railpen now expect to see written into the business case. If you work in any of those disciplines, London retrofit is a growing, not shrinking, part of the market.

For quantity surveyors and project managers, a PCSA-to-contract pathway like this one means early involvement in cost planning before the main works contract is signed, which is where the more interesting commercial decisions tend to get made. With Kier starting on site by the end of the year and running through to late 2028, this is a multi-year London opportunity for anyone looking to build experience on institutional-grade commercial retrofit before that becomes the default way London's office stock gets renewed.