HS2 Resets EKFB and Align Civils Contracts Covering Over 100 km of Route
HS2 Ltd announced on 31 July 2026 that it had signed renegotiated commercial contracts with its two largest civil engineering joint ventures, EKFB and Align. Together the two contracts account for more than 100 km of the HS2 route between London and the West Midlands.
EKFB — a joint venture of Eiffage, Kier, Ferrovial Construction and BAM Nuttall — is delivering civil engineering works on an 80 km section running from the north portal of the Chiltern Tunnel in Buckinghamshire to Long Itchington Wood in Warwickshire. Align — a joint venture of Bouygues Travaux Publics, Sir Robert McAlpine and VolkerFitzpatrick — is constructing 24 km of the route in outer London and south Buckinghamshire, including the Colne Valley Viaduct and the Chiltern Tunnel.
The contracts being replaced were established before construction formally started in 2020. According to HS2 Ltd, they placed almost all of the financial risk on taxpayers by failing to incentivise schedule or cost targets, and by 2024 the original £15bn budget for the main civils contracts on HS2 Phase 1 had been exhausted while the works remained incomplete. The revised agreements change the payment mechanism so that contractor reward is tied to cost control, programme performance and efficient delivery.
Mark Wild, Chief Executive of HS2 Ltd, said: "Bringing an end to HS2's cost over-runs and delays is a shared ambition, and I'd like to thank every one of the parent companies at both EKFB and Align for their willingness to negotiate and their commitment to doing the right thing for British taxpayers." Lord Hendy, Minister of State for Rail, described the new contracts as an important milestone in the reset of the project. Sally Cox, Managing Director at EKFB, and Adrien Baudard, Project Director at Align JV, both endorsed the renegotiated terms in the same announcement.
HS2 Ltd did not publish the value of either renegotiated contract, nor an estimate of the savings expected from the new commercial model, and gave no revised completion date for the civils works. The announcement sits against the government's stated cost ambition of £93.2bn for the project, set out in May 2026.