They are joined for the first time by AECOM, RSK Environment and Mace which are all hoping for a share of work from the £500m four year framework.

In total 77 firms were selected across 18 service specific lots in seven geographical regions, including civil, structural and highways engineering, building services, landscaping and building surveying.

Several new lots have been introduced for 2020, including heritage, town and master planning, and fire engineering.

Simon Toplass, CEO at Pagabo, said: “We were blown away by the number of responses to the tender for this second iteration of our Professional Services framework.

“It’s been a hugely competitive process due to the record number of applications from well over 200 individual providers.

“The current generation of the framework has enabled close to 700 projects since its inception and is on track to reach its upper limit of £200m.

“Furthermore, over £141m of social value has been enabled to date.”