What happened

Hackney Council has formally appointed Wates to a £25.1m contract to finish phase 2b of the Britannia regeneration scheme in Hoxton, Construction News reported this week, confirming Wates as the replacement for collapsed contractor Ardmore. The council's Cabinet procurement and insourcing committee approved the appointment on 2 November. Wates had already been on site under a licence to occupy since 30 June, moving to a pre-construction services agreement from 25 August, before this week's contract confirms it for the design, procurement and installation of the external envelope across all four residential buildings on the scheme.

The wider Britannia scheme is valued at around £197m to £200m, and Hackney Council has acknowledged that completing it will now cost more than its approved £196.9m capital budget, a direct cost of Ardmore's collapse landing on the public purse rather than just on subcontractors. Ardmore's administration also stalled a separate £50m job at Chancery Lane, where Red Group has since stepped in, and halted further schemes across London.

Why it matters

This is the pattern that tends to follow a contractor collapse of Ardmore's size: councils and developers do not simply walk away from part-built schemes, they re-procure, usually at a higher cost and on a compressed timetable, and usually to a shortlist of contractors who already have the balance sheet and the regional presence to take on a half-finished building. Wates has now picked up Ardmore work in two different parts of London inside a few months. For housing-focused main contractors with spare capacity and a strong balance sheet, collapsed-contractor work is one of the more reliable sources of new instructions in a market where fresh starts are scarce.

What it means for careers and hiring

If you are a QS, project manager or site manager with experience picking up part-built schemes, this is a specific and marketable skill right now: understanding what state a half-finished building is really in, re-baselining a programme and cost plan against someone else's unfinished work, and managing the inevitable client nervousness about budget overruns. Wates will need exactly that capability on its Hackney and Chancery Lane-adjacent teams through 2027, and so will whichever contractors pick up the remaining Ardmore-affected schemes still unresolved across London. Regional housing delivery teams in London are the ones to watch here, and anyone with recent experience of contractor insolvency handover, from either the council or contractor side, should expect that experience to be in demand for as long as the sector's administration rate stays elevated.