The contractor’s bumper month was led by a £260m upgrade of Thames Water’s Maple Lodge Sewage Treatment Works near Rickmansworth in Hertfordshire.

Kier’s building arm also landed a £100m office job known as Holden House on Oxford Street in London’s West End for developer Derwent and a £52m rebuild of St Clare’s school in Essex.

Multiplex came in second after confirming a £250m deal to build a 54-storey tower at 99 Bishopsgate in the City of London, building on several recent major project successes.

Across the wider market, the top 50 contractors saw new orders in August slip marginally to £3.12bn from July’s total of around £3.21bn with 126 projects secured against 112 in the previous month, according to data compiled by Barbour ABI.

In the rolling 12-month rankings of work won, Kier also took pole position, closely challenged by Balfour Beatty and Willmott Dixon.