The selected partners will deliver the £5.1bn defence estate optimisation programme. They are: Galliford Try, ISG, Graham, Kier, Laing O’Rourke, Lendlease Construction and Morgan Sindall.

Defence Infrastructure Organisation procurement chiefs picked the firms after a mini competition using the Crown Commercial Service framework.

Director of Infrastructure for MoD Sherin Aminossehe said: “The Strategic Alliance Contract for the defence estate optimisation portfolio will allow us to capitalise on the wealth of knowledge within the construction industry and harness that expertise in a way we’ve not previously done.

“We will be delivering at pace and start to see the benefits straight away within projects being mobilised this year.”

Defence Estate Optimisation is the single biggest estates change programme within defence, bringing together an ambitious portfolio of interdependent programmes, construction activity, unit and personnel moves, and land release.

It will invest in a better-structured, modern and more sustainable estate that improves security, resilience, and military capability.

At the heart of DEO’s vision is a significant construction and refurbishment programme for both single living and service family accommodation as well as a range of, operational, educational, and technical facilities which spans the MoD’s UK estate.

Under this new formal arrangement, rather than tendering singular projects one at a time, many projects will be bundled and tendered at once in the hope of improving timescales, quality and efficiency of project delivery.

DIO Director of Commercial David Poole said: “The market response was highly positive, with 56 tenders received across our 11 packages of work leading to awards to seven competitive contractors.”

This morning Galliford Try confirmed its winning bids covered the Air & UK Strategic Command and Munster Barracks, Catterick lots, worth nearly £400m.

This included refurbishment, new-build and single living accommodation projects at RAF bases and strategic command facilities across the country, and Catterick garrison.

ISG said it would now deliver a £250m, 250-acre new build barracks and supporting facilities at the 1,250 acre Caerwent Station training area in Monmouthshire, South Wales.

This project will culminate in a return to Wales for a Welsh Regiment, 1^st The Queen’s Dragoon Guards and 1st Battalion, The Rifles, with over 1000 service personnel living and working at the site.

Graham has been appointed as sole supplier for the Regional Bundle Scotland and Leuchars Barracks Major Project Package.