The blockbusting contract secured by special purpose company Cascade Infrastructure is the UK’s first major water scheme procured under Ofwat’s Direct Procurement for Customers model.

Strabag, with partners Equitix and GLIL Infrastructure, will deliver the nine-year upgrade to the near 70-year-old aqueduct which carries carries 570m litres of water a day by gravity from the Lake District to 2.5m people across Cumbria, Lancashire and Greater Manchester.

Top 10  – work won in August

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In what proved a bumper month for flagship major projects, Mace came in second with sign off for the the £1.1bn British Library extension project at St Pancras in central London for developer Mitsui Fudosan UK.

Bouygues ranked third on the strength of it job to build Cambridge Children’s Hospital will be housed in a new 35,000m2 building based at the heart of the Cambridge Biomedical Campus.

According to data compiled by Barbour ABI, the top 50 contractors saw the value of new orders nearly double to £8.3bn from £4.4bn in July.

Top 5  – Total wins 12 months to August

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The big awards stirred on the rolling 12-month league for orders taken with Mace now leading the pack and Strabag coming in second place overall on the strength of the single water pipeline order.

Sir Robert McAlpine previously in pole position was pushed down to third place by the mega projects.