The contractor ended the year with a tally of £2.298bn of secured orders, just £22m more than main rival Kier in one the closest finishes for many years.
Multiplex finished the year ranked third after being boosted by a £500m order in December to rebuild the former London Television Centre on the south bank of the Thames in London.
Balfour also put in a late order for high voltage underground cables on the Eastern Green Link power connector scheme lifting it to fourth place.
Top 10 ranking by total work secured
2024
2023
1
Morgan Sindall
£2,298m
Morgan Sindall
£2,160m
2
Kier
£2,276m
Sir Robert McAlpine
£1,414m
3
Multiplex Europe
£1,636m
Royal BAM
£1,373m
4
Balfour Beatty
£1,473m
Willmott Dixon
£1,334m
5
Royal BAM
£1,411m
Galliford Try
£1,299m
6
Willmott Dixon
£1,244m
Kier
£1,276m
7
Galliford Try
£1,192m
Mace
£1,184m
8
Bouygues
£1,173m
Wates
£1,085m
9
Bowmer & Kirkland
£1,163m
Bowmer & Kirkland
£1,028m
10
Winvic
£1,122m
Balfour Beatty
£944m
Click for full interactive tables of contractor and client rankings
The top 100 firms together bagged over £38.6bn of work – up 13% on last year.
The top 10 firms saw their share of total new orders secured by the 100 leading contractors edged up to 39% from 38% in the prior year, according to data collected by information specialist Barbour ABI.