IN Brief:
- Ramboll has been appointed to the UK government’s Construction Professional Services 2 framework.
- The four-year framework has an estimated value of £3.5bn across public-sector construction and infrastructure consultancy.
- The appointment strengthens Ramboll’s access to public estate, infrastructure, and advisory work.
Ramboll has been appointed to the UK government’s Construction Professional Services 2 framework, securing a place on one of the largest public-sector consultancy routes for construction and infrastructure work.
The CPS 2 framework has an estimated total value of £3.5bn and is expected to run for four years. It gives central government departments, local authorities, NHS trusts, education bodies, and other public organisations access to construction and infrastructure professional services through a pre-established procurement route.
For Ramboll, the appointment opens access to advisory, design, engineering, environmental, and project support opportunities across the public estate and infrastructure pipeline. The framework is expected to support schemes from early feasibility and technical advisory work through to detailed design, assurance, and programme support.
Frameworks of this type now sit at the centre of public construction procurement. They shorten buying routes, give public clients access to prequalified expertise, and allow specialist teams to be called into projects without rebuilding procurement processes for each appointment. Appointment does not guarantee workload, but it places consultants inside the structure through which future commissions will be competed or awarded.
The scale of CPS 2 reflects the breadth of technical support now needed across public construction. Building safety, retrofit, estate decarbonisation, transport infrastructure, healthcare upgrades, education projects, flood resilience, digital project controls, and energy performance all require professional input before physical works reach site.
Public-sector clients are under pressure to define risk earlier and with greater technical confidence. Asset surveys, feasibility studies, whole-life cost models, procurement strategy, planning advice, stakeholder coordination, and design assurance can determine whether a project reaches tender in a deliverable form. Weak front-end work often reappears later as redesign, claims, delay, or unaffordable scope.
The growing use of public frameworks can be seen across different parts of the built environment. The Metropolitan Police has opened procurement for a £560m building works framework, covering refurbishment, M&E, security, demolition, and new-build activity across operational estate assets. In the energy sector, AtkinsRéalis has joined an EDF and Sizewell C professional services framework, showing how clients are locking in technical knowledge across long-running programmes.
CPS 2 operates across a wider public-sector base, but the underlying procurement logic is similar. Public clients need access to consultants that can combine engineering, environmental, commercial, digital, and programme expertise, particularly where projects cut across several asset classes or funding streams.
The consultant market has also changed. Technical depth remains essential, yet clients increasingly expect advisory teams to understand delivery, procurement, cost certainty, sustainability, maintenance, and operational performance. A design package that cannot survive planning challenge, funding approval, gateway review, or practical operation creates risk long before a contractor mobilises.
Ramboll’s appointment gives the business a route into projects where engineering, environment, sustainability, and infrastructure skills are likely to be brought together. Estate decarbonisation, healthcare environments, transport interfaces, energy resilience, and major civic regeneration all require this kind of joined-up technical advice.
Although CPS 2 is a professional services framework, its influence will be felt by contractors and suppliers. Early surveys, specifications, procurement strategy, buildability reviews, planning conditions, and risk allocation shape tendering and site delivery. The quality of those decisions can determine whether a scheme is commercially credible when it reaches the construction market.
The framework will not put cranes on site directly, but it will help decide which schemes become viable, how they are scoped, and how public clients manage risk before main works begin. In a market where delivery problems often start long before mobilisation, that front-end work has become a critical part of construction performance.
