What happened

Developer Endurance Land, part of the Nan Fung Group, has confirmed Multiplex as main contractor for 99 City Road, a 36-storey commercial tower at the Old Street roundabout in central London, Construction News and Construction Enquirer reported this month. The £300m scheme will deliver around 475,000 sq ft (44,100 sq m) of office space aimed at technology and innovation-led occupiers, with main construction works due to start within weeks, in the third quarter of this year, and practical completion targeted for 2030.

Multiplex UK managing director Callum Tuckett said the firm was pleased to be working with Endurance Land again, having delivered projects for the developer before. The appointment follows a competitive process reported by Building earlier this year, when the scheme was still being tendered at the Old Street roundabout site.

Why it matters

A confirmed main contractor and a start date on a £300m City tower is a concrete marker that London's office development pipeline, which slowed sharply through the higher-rate years, is moving into delivery again. Schemes aimed at tech and innovation occupiers rather than traditional financial services tenants have been the ones getting backed, and this is one of the larger ones to convert from planning into a live construction programme this year.

For the wider market, a four-year build programme on a 36-storey tower is a long runway of work. It sits alongside a run of other City and Docklands office starts this year, and it puts a tier one contractor's full supply chain, from piling and frame through to façade and fit-out, back to work on a single site for the rest of the decade.

What it means for your career

A programme like this hires in stages, and knowing where those stages fall is the difference between chasing a job late and being in position early. The next twelve to eighteen months will be about substructure, frame and façade: site engineers, planners and senior quantity surveyors with high-rise experience are the early hires. From around 2028, the demand shifts to M&E project management and fit-out teams, where commercial office experience, particularly with tech-sector occupier requirements, becomes the differentiator over standard commercial fit-out background.

If tall building experience is on your CV, this is worth approaching directly through Multiplex's supply chain and specialist subcontractors now, well before the fit-out hiring wave starts, rather than waiting for the roles to appear on a job board. London remains the place where high-rise commercial experience commands the clearest premium, and a scheme of this size, on a four-year build programme, is exactly the kind of project that builds that experience for whoever gets on it early.