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A string of major wins have propelled Balfour Beatty to first place in the contractors’ league table for November. A five-year deal worth £125m to manage and maintain 681km of trunk roads in south-west Scotland was the stand-out contract award in a bumper month for the firm, worth £366m in total.

Balfour Beatty won 74 contracts worth £100,000 or more during November, more wins than the next six contractors on the league table - which records construction work including civils –combined.

Wins for Balfour Beatty included a £47m contract on Crossrail and the £29.4m jetty at the proposed Hinkley Point C power station.

Laing O’Rourke rose to second place after a contract haul of £316m, including November’s largest contract - a £160m deal with Guy’s and St Thomas’ hospitals in south London.

It also confirmed a £76m contract to build 200 homes in Barking, Essex, and a £50m job at Llandough Hospital, Penarth.

Sir Robert McAlpine re-entered the top 10 with schemes worth £59m for Manchester Metropolitan University and a £53m London mixed-use scheme for Exemplar Properties.

The news came as the CPA/Barbour ABI construction index rose for the fourth consecutive month to 113, up from 112 the previous month.

The index, which measures contract awards and uses a January 2010 base of 100, is compiled by the Construction Products Association (CPA) using data from construction information firm Barbour ABI.

Noble Francis, CPA economics director, said despite the upturn, November’s contract haul was still 13% down on the level of contracts at the start of the year.

Year-on-year, all areas of work declined apart from repairs and maintenance on public housing, which was up 1.6%.