Birmingham in top gear

Davis Langdon's cost consultancy workload has slumped in this month's ranking of QSs, but the firm still continues to dominate the league, retaining the top spot.

The firm has the largest volume of work on its books in terms of contract value for the year to May, with £888m on its books thanks to 110 jobs.

Yet Davis Langdon has slipped compared to last month's ranking, which showed that in the year to April the firm had £1.37bn of work and 118 contracts.

Despite this the firm remains comfortably ahead of its nearest threat Cyril Sweett, which has £639m worth of work for the same period, through 37 contracts.

In contrast to Davis Langdon, Cyril Sweett's figures have seen little fluctuation - the firm had projects worth £644m totalling 38 in last month.

Gardiner & Theobald has held on to third place in the QS table, with £581m of work and 58 deals.

Birmingham City Council is leading this month's league of project managers. The Council is project managing a single highways maintenance project worth £2.2bn, which will span 25 years. The scheme includes roads and all footways, bridges, street lighting and traffic signals, plus the street cleaning and the upkeep of street scenery such as safety barriers, seats, trees and grass verges.

Two companies have been shortlisted to carry out the work: Amey and a consortium called Birmingham Street Services comprised of Amec, Vinci and Laing O'Rourke.

• This information was compiled for QS News by ABI Building Data (www.barbour-abi.com).

• ABI's figures include UK contracts with a value of £100,000 and above and all work awarded by negotiation or competitive tender, including residential and civils work.