What happened

Mace is preparing to restart work on the £200m Daubeny Buildings research scheme at Oxford Science Park, Construction Enquirer reported this week, eleven months after the job was halted mid-build. Mace had been on site since summer 2024 and had topped out two of the three planned six-storey blocks when work stopped last October, following the Ellison Institute of Technology's acquisition of the site partway through construction. The institute, backed by Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, ordered a full overhaul of the original Scott Brownrigg design.

New project architect Foster + Partners has now secured planning approval for the redesign, which turns the three standalone blocks into a single interconnected research complex. That means sections of the completed superstructure, including parts of the upper floors and the building envelope, will be demolished before rebuilding work resumes. The scheme forms part of the wider 190,000 sq m Ellison Institute Oxford campus masterplan, which is intended to provide research, leisure and catering space for up to 7,000 employees once complete.

Why it matters

The restart is a reminder that life sciences and lab construction has kept attracting serious investment even as the wider commercial pipeline has slowed, and that a change of ownership mid-scheme is one of the sharper risks in that sector. Few clients would choose to strip out completed floors, but the Ellison Institute's willingness to absorb that cost to get the design it wants shows how much value is being placed on getting specialist research space right, rather than settling for what was originally on the drawing board. For contractors and consultants bidding life sciences work, it is also a case study in why resourcing and programme contingencies need to allow for a scheme being paused, or substantially changed, once a well-funded new owner arrives.

What it means for careers and hiring

The restart brings demolition and remedial trades back onto a live Oxford site in the near term, alongside the site management and logistics roles needed to sequence a partial strip-out around a working construction programme. Further out, the redesign to an interconnected complex will need specialist lab fit-out and MEP skills, an area where demand consistently outstrips supply given how technically demanding cleanroom and containment work is compared with standard commercial fit-out. For QSs and project managers looking to specialise, life sciences remains one of the more resilient sub-sectors to build a CV around, and Oxfordshire, anchored by this campus and the wider Oxford Science Park, continues to be one of the strongest regional clusters for that kind of work outside the Golden Triangle's other hubs.