The UK business, which has built a strong track record in PFI hospital building, will carry out around 30% of the contract.

The new university hospital, New Karolinska Solna, reached financial close last month and is the first PPP in Sweden. As a construction job it is slightly bigger than Skanska’s St Barts hospital PFI in London.

Construction work will be undertaken by Skanska in Sweden in cooperation with Skanska in the UK.

This work will commence in the summer and the first patients are scheduled to be received in December 2015.

The decision to place a chunk of the work with the UK will help the business to ride out some of the effects of spending cuts.

Skanska made the decision public as it unveiled results for the first half of the year showing turnover in the UK down 24% to £631m. Operating profit slid just 4% to £15m.

The firm said that it had been forced to carried out project writedowns in the UK utilities unit, while PFI  projects were written up.

The Swedish contracting giant said it had started to see the effects of public spending cuts in the UK and the volume of public-private partnership (PPP) projects had weakened because of uncertainty due to the British budget situation.

Orders booking in the first half of 2010 fell by 28% to £957m, although last  year’s comparative figures were inflated by the M25 widening. This year’s figure included £70m for three schools in Essex under the BSF and the Belmarsh prison.