IN Brief:
- Great Western Railway has appointed 16 suppliers to a three-lot construction and infrastructure framework with a reported £90m overall value.
- The lots cover minor works, major station projects, and depot improvements, with four contractors listed across all three.
- The arrangement is due to begin on 30 November 2026 for three years, with a possible one-year extension and provisions for transfer to a successor operator.
The Great Western Railway construction and infrastructure framework has been awarded to 16 contractors, establishing a procurement route for station improvements, depot facilities, and smaller building projects across the operator’s estate. The programme has been reported at £90m and is divided into three distinct lots, allowing future commissions to be matched to the scale and technical demands of individual works.
Four suppliers secured places in all three lots: AmcoGiffen, Hollywell Building Services, Jamieson Contracting (North West), and Walker Construction (UK). The other appointments are split across one or two lots. The supplier lists reflect the different skills involved in station building work, depot facilities, mechanical and electrical installations, and railway civil engineering; inclusion does not give a supplier an automatic entitlement to a future project.
The first lot covers minor works, including general building repairs, refurbishment, roofing, fencing, smaller civil engineering tasks, and structural alterations. A separate major stations lot provides capacity for platform extensions, new or altered canopies, improved accessibility, building refurbishment, and new station accommodation. The third lot covers depot projects, where workshops, drainage, hardstanding, utilities, and specialist operational installations present a different combination of interfaces.
Among those appointed to minor and major station works are Centregreat Rail, Gloster MEP, and Honeyfield Property Services. Construction Marine and MLG UK appear in both the major stations and depot categories, while Vinci Construction UK is listed for minor works and depot improvements. CK Rail Solutions and Railscape have places on the minor works lot.
Depot-only appointments include Emeg Group, International Workplace Solutions, Spencer Rail Engineering, and Trackwork. Those suppliers will compete for work at operational maintenance facilities rather than assume responsibility for an agreed pipeline of projects. The procurement structure keeps station refurbishment and depot construction as separate routes, even where a contractor has been appointed to more than one.
The framework is expected to start on 30 November 2026 and run for three years, with an option to extend by a further year to November 2030. The procurement documents describe an open framework structure, under which supplier refresh is possible during its lifetime. Individual projects are to be called off through mini-competitions using adapted JCT contract forms appropriate to the work being commissioned.
Appointment establishes eligibility to compete for defined projects. Each mini-competition will set out its scope, pricing requirements, assessment criteria, and applicable contract form. The £90m is the estimated aggregate framework value, excluding VAT, rather than an allocation to each contractor. There is no guarantee that the full amount will be spent, or that all appointed suppliers will receive work.
Station construction takes place alongside passenger circulation, staff operations, and railway systems. A platform extension or canopy project can require segregated work areas and short possession windows, while changes to pedestrian routes must be coordinated with the station’s continuing use. At depots, workshop access, drainage, power distribution, and equipment interfaces create different constraints. The contractor for each package will need to resolve those site-specific requirements at design and delivery stage.
The framework documents require contractors to meet safety, quality, and environmental standards while minimising disruption to operational locations. The particular possessions, isolations, site access arrangements, and design responsibilities will depend on each future contract; the published appointments do not establish when or where individual station projects will begin.
The framework requires evidence of safety, quality, and technical capability for work in occupied railway environments, while individual competitions can vary the balance between commercial and technical scoring. Suppliers may therefore compete differently for a short refurbishment and a complex depot installation. The framework also allows a refresh of suppliers during its lifetime, rather than freezing the original 16-company pool for every future project.
The published framework creates a route for selecting contractors, but it contains no site-by-site delivery schedule. A canopy replacement and a depot building extension have different temporary works, operational interfaces, and design responsibilities; contractors must price the actual tendered scope. Station and depot projects are described as typically worth around £300,000 to £3m, an indicative range rather than a commitment to commission jobs at those values.
The procurement also provides for the expected transition of Great Western Railway services into public ownership. It was run by First Greater Western Limited, with provisions allowing a successor operator to take over relevant procurement and contractual rights. Such clauses are intended to retain an available construction route during an organisational change rather than require every station and depot commission to be re-tendered solely because the operating entity changes.
The next observable step will be the award of individual station, depot, and maintenance packages. Until those call-offs identify sites, contract values, and programmes, the announcement represents contractor selection for a procurement route rather than the start of 16 separate construction projects.
