What happened

Industry analyst Glenigan reported this week, via Construction News, that £33.1bn worth of construction projects were awarded in the three months to the end of July 2026, up 169% on the same period last year. The jump was sharper still at the top end: awards for major contracts worth £100m or more rose 434%.

Healthcare saw the biggest swing, with contract awards up more than 600% as 11 hospital contracts were signed in the period. Among them, Skanska's Queen Elizabeth Hospital and James Paget University Hospital deals are estimated at £1bn and £950m respectively, while Graham's replacement of Airedale General Hospital in West Yorkshire and Sacyr's Frimley Park Hospital in Surrey are each put at around £1.5bn. Education sector signings trebled, community and amenity work rose 182%, and hotel and leisure awards rose 787%, with approvals in that sector up 56%. Civil engineering project starts climbed 171% and contract awards rose 85%, even though planning approvals in that sector fell by more than a third. Housing planning approvals, by contrast, dropped 22% over the same period.

Why it matters

Headline growth figures like 169% flatter the picture if you don't look underneath them: this is not a broad-based recovery, it is a concentrated one, driven overwhelmingly by the New Hospital Programme and a handful of very large civils schemes. The gap between rising contract awards and falling planning approvals in civil engineering and housing is worth sitting with too, because it suggests the current burst of awarded work is drawing down a pipeline that isn't being replenished at the same rate. That has a practical consequence: the sectors doing well right now, healthcare, major civils, hotel and leisure, are not necessarily the sectors that will still be doing well in twelve months.

What it means for your career

If you're weighing a move, healthcare is the sector to watch closely over the next six to twelve months. The named hospital contracts alone, Skanska, Graham and Sacyr among them, point to a wave of mobilisation hiring for project managers, planners and MEP-focused quantity surveyors who can show NHS or clinical-environment experience, since that background is scarcer than general commercial experience and tends to command a premium on these schemes. Civil engineering professionals should read the starts-versus-approvals gap as a reason to move on current openings rather than wait, given that the pipeline behind today's awards looks thinner. If your background is residential, the falling approvals figure is a reason for caution rather than alarm: it doesn't mean roles disappear overnight, but it does mean it's worth keeping your options open rather than assuming demand for your skills will hold at current levels through next year.