It took pole position on the strength of a trio of big orders. These included a £600m contract for the Euston Tower overhaul in London for British Land, the £140m pier 6 extension at Gatwick Airport worth £140m and a £100m project for the Pandemic Science build at Oxford University.

According to data compiled by Barbour ABI, the value of projects secured by the leading 50 contractors plunged by 16% to £3.56bn in February from £4.26bn. The number of project awards slipped to 122 from 132 in February.

The run of big contract wins for Mace also catapulted the firm into third place in the league for accumulated new orders in the rolling 12 months to March.

Sir Robert McAlpine and Morgan Sindall remain ranked in first and second respectively, with little now separating the top three.

Among the other big wins in March, Balfour Beatty secured a £200m contract for the Hykeham Relief Road from Lincolnshire County Council.

In the Capital, commercial office upgrade work is starting to offer rich picking for contractors.

Ardmore was confirmed for a major grade 2 building upgrade at 25m Finsbury Circus in the city worth around £150m, while BAM secured a major tower refit and building extension at the Broadgate Campus and Morgan Sindall bagged the office refit for Brookfield Property at 1 Leadenhall Street.