Published Thursday 6 August 2026 · By the JustEng team
A decisive court ruling on airport expansion, a sharp rebound in contract awards, further consolidation among design consultancies and a headline HS2 lift make up this morning’s round-up. Below is what happened, and what each development means for engineering recruitment and vacancies across the UK.
Court of Appeal clears Gatwick second runway, opening a civil engineering vacancies pipeline
On 4 August the Government confirmed that the Court of Appeal had dismissed the latest challenge to Gatwick’s second runway and refused permission to appeal, upholding the High Court’s June decision. The £2.2bn scheme moves the airport’s emergency runway north so it can take routine narrow-body departures, with first flights targeted for 2030. Read the Government announcement.
Hiring angle: A scheme on this scale pulls in airfield civils, drainage, utilities, temporary works and commissioning specialists, and we expect a steady flow of civil engineering vacancies across the South East supply chain from next year onwards. Employers who start mapping that talent now, rather than when mobilisation begins, will not be competing with every other bidder for the same shortlist — current roles are on our jobs board and our civil engineering recruitment page.
Contract awards rebound to £19.8bn in the first half
UK construction contract awards reached £19.8bn in the first half of 2026, up 65% year on year, with £12.75bn signed in the first quarter and £7bn in the second — the latter still 77% ahead of the same quarter in 2025. Named schemes in the period included a Gatwick refurbishment and repair programme, a large Hampshire new-build development, the Margam substation extension at Port Talbot and a Cardiff arena and hotel scheme. See the figures.
Hiring angle: Awards are the leading indicator that matters most for hiring, because they translate into delivery headcount roughly six to twelve months later. Contractors and consultancies that wait for the work to land before opening requisitions typically find the strongest project and design managers already committed elsewhere. The concentration of value in the first quarter also matters: it points to a lumpy, front-loaded workload where engineering jobs in the UK will cluster around a handful of large programmes rather than spreading evenly across the market.
Consultancy consolidation continues as Ethos acquires 3DEC
Ethos Engineering announced on 3 August that it has acquired UK building services consultancy 3DEC Ltd, the latest in a run of deals reshaping the mid-tier engineering design market on both sides of the Irish Sea. Read the report.
Hiring angle: Acquisitions reliably unsettle senior technical staff, and the six months after a deal are when the best associates and team leaders are most open to a conversation. For clients hiring at that level, discreet headhunting consistently outperforms advertising, because the people worth approaching are not reading job boards.
HS2 prepares to slide a viaduct across the M6
HS2 is due to move a viaduct deck into position over the M6 on the weekend of 21 August, repeating the technique first used on the UK network last year, with associated works on the strategic road network in the West Midlands running through the month. Read the detail.
Hiring angle: Heavy temporary works and bridge slides are exactly the experience that makes a CV stand out in the rail and highways market, and candidate demand for temporary works designers and structural engineers with major-crossing experience remains well ahead of supply. If you are benchmarking an offer for that kind of hire, our structural engineering recruitment team and our structural engineer salary guide are a useful starting point.
JustEng is a specialist engineering recruitment agency headhunting hard-to-find engineers across civil, structural, fire and façade disciplines. Engineers can submit your CV for a confidential conversation, and hiring managers can register your vacancy to speak to a consultant who knows the market.