Anderson, who worked at Balfour for over 16 years in several senior roles at its railway business, will join Murphy in early February.

His early career saw him deliver high profile projects such as M25 widening and Channel Tunnel Rail Link C440.

Murphy’s chief executive officer, Steve Hollingshead, said: “We have a lot to deliver for our clients and there are great opportunities across the infrastructure sector.

“Peter further boosts our team to maximise those opportunities and deliver our ten-year plan. He will become a key member of our executive management board.”

Murphy’s current MD for the south, Darren Ramsay, will move to lead the bidding and delivery for some of the company’s major infrastructure projects, including the vast York Potash mine scheme where the contractor will deliver a major tunnelling contract.

Hollingshead is building up his management team at Murphy as part of a 10-year plan to double the size of the business.

In the last three months, the firm has hired David Burke as its new finance boss from Serco and poached Van Elle piling chief Andrew Waghorn to run its ground engineering business.

More recently Murphy hired Durkan development director Shaun Sheldrake as construction operations director and Laing O’Rourke glass reinforced concrete boss Miles Cobley to become head of planning and project controls in the North.

Hollingshead added:“As we deliver our business plan, these appointments are a statement of our intent to attract and retain the best industry talent.”

Meanwhile, Balfour Beatty/Vinci announced that Mark Cutler was replacing Anderson as the new managing director of its HS2 joint venture,.

Cutler rejoined Balfour Beatty last year as director of strategic projects, after a brief stint at Keepmoat and having previously led Balfour’s UK regional construction and civil engineering businesses.

He was previously CEO of Barhale and managing director of Morgan Est following his early career in Carillion, during which time he oversaw major projects on the West Coast upgrade and High Speed 1.