BAM started the New Year with a brace of major orders that pushed it to pole position in the contract league rankings.

The firm’s building arm finalised the contract to repurpose Digbeth’s historic Typhoo Tea Building into a new home for the BBC in Birmingham.

It civils operation BAM Nuttall also achieved final sign-off on a £250m job to improve road congestion at three bottlenecks on the A38 around Derby.

According to data compiled by Barbour ABI, the year got off to a flying start with the total value of awards secured by the 50 most successful contractors totalling nearly £4bn, representing 130 projects.

This was double December’s total in value terms when 90 projects were secured.

In the rolling 12-month league of wins, Morgan Sindall continued to rank top. Sir Robert McAlpine edged up to second place, while BAM jumped into third place on the strength of January’s order haul.

Among the other big contract wins in the month, developer/contractor London Square sealed a £300m deal to build 457 flats alongside 100,000 sq ft of commercial space at the Vulcan Wharf site in East London for housing association Peabody.

Lendlease Construction also secured a £271m contract to deliver living quarter improvements at Imjin Barracks in Gloucestershire for the Ministry of Defence under its strategic alliance.

Integrated Health Projects (IHP), Sir Robert McAlpine’s joint venture with Vinci,  was confirmed as design and construction partner by The Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust for its £312m Hospitals Transformation Programme.

Sir Robert McAlpine also secured a £94m project to build a manufacturing and R&D facility in East Yorkshire for pharmaceutical giant Smith & Nephew.