Thames Water has shortlisted three joint ventures to tender for the £5.7bn main works contract to build the White Horse Reservoir near Abingdon in Oxfordshire, Construction News and New Civil Engineer reported this week.

The three consortia are BBV, led by Balfour Beatty Civil Engineering with Vinci Construction Grands Projets, BMV+, led by Bouygues Travaux Publics with J Murphy & Sons and VolkerFitzpatrick, and WFH JV, led by Webuild with Hyundai Engineering and Construction and FCC Construccion. Detailed tenders are due next spring, with a contract award expected in autumn 2027.

Why it matters

The 150 billion litre reservoir has been in planning for close to two decades and is now being described by Thames Water as the largest water infrastructure investment in a generation. It is designed to secure supply for 15 million people across the South East, including customers of Thames Water, Affinity Water and Southern Water, with water available for use from 2040. Construction is expected to take around a decade once it starts, which means this is a job that will outlast most people's current role, let alone their current employer.

The fact that three separate international joint ventures have been assembled, each pairing a UK-facing main contractor with specialist civils and tunnelling partners, tells you how seriously the water sector is now resourcing AMP8 and beyond. It also shows contractors hedging their bets by teaming up rather than going it alone on a scheme of this size and duration.

What it means for careers and hiring

Thames Water puts the construction-phase job count at more than 1,000, covering geotechnical and civil engineers, ecologists and archaeologists, through to apprenticeships, and some reports put the figure closer to 1,800 once the wider supply chain is included. For quantity surveyors and commercial managers, a scheme this size and this early in its life means long-run contract roles in cost management, procurement and NEC administration, likely based around Oxfordshire and the wider Thames Valley.

If you are in civils, tunnelling or geotechnical engineering, this is worth tracking now even though the contract will not be awarded until autumn 2027. All three shortlisted teams will be building delivery organisations well ahead of that date, and early movers into pre-contract roles with Balfour Beatty, Bouygues, Webuild or their partners will be well placed when the main works mobilise. For anyone weighing up a move into major infrastructure, a decade-long water scheme offers the kind of career runway that a shorter building contract cannot.