UK Construction

National Highways puts £8bn of road upkeep out to tender

By Staff Writer  |  25 July 2026

England's biggest road-maintenance contracts are being reset. National Highways will put a framework worth about £7.96bn out to tender next month, with a single contractor appointed for each of seven regions.

The Maintenance and Response 2 framework overhauls how England's 4,500-mile strategic road network is looked after. An invitation to tender goes out next month, paving the way for a major change in the delivery model.

The reset replaces the current ten maintenance contracts as they expire from 2028. Firms holding areas today include Amey, Colas, Costain, Kier and Ringway. Under the new arrangement, just one contractor will be appointed to each of seven regional lots.

The work covers routine and reactive maintenance, incident response, winter service, roadside technology and asset renewals such as road markings, lighting, signs, barriers and fencing. The framework runs from January 2028 to July 2037, one of the largest highways maintenance procurements ever launched in England.

One supplier a region changes the risk

Moving from ten contracts to seven single-supplier lots concentrates both the work and the risk. Bidders for several regions will rank their preferred lots, so National Highways can allocate using a mix of tender scores and preferences rather than handing every top-scoring lot to one firm. An overarching agreement is meant to provide cover across the network if a supplier fails.

For contractors, the prize is a long, stable book of work; the exposure is that a single default now affects a whole region. Pricing a contract that runs for about eight and a half years also means taking a firm view on inflation, labour and the condition of the assets being inherited.

A single supplier for each region means a bigger prize and a bigger single point of failure.

What bidders should watch

Applications close in October, with awards expected by November 2027. National Highways has built inflation and contingency into the framework value, so it exceeds the combined value of the seven regional contracts.

The contest for England's roads has effectively started. The firms that win will hold them into the late 2030s.