GRAHAM, National Highways and Sweco take Highways UK collaboration award for M25 junction 28

GRAHAM, National Highways and design partner Sweco have won the Collaborative Delivery Award at the Highways UK Excellence Awards 2026 for the M25 junction 28 improvement scheme, the contractor has announced.

GRAHAM put the value of the scheme at £125m and described it as an upgrade to one of the UK's busiest motorway interchanges. The awards organiser's winners list records the category winner as "National Highways, GRAHAM, Sweco - M25 J28 Project".

Andy Salmon, National Highways Programme Leader, described the achievement as "unprecedented in the Regional Delivery Partnership" and "a testament to the excellent collaborative working of our integrated teams over the past seven years".

The award

GRAHAM said the project team engaged early with National Highways operations teams, Transport for London and maintenance stakeholders to establish asset requirements and speed up decision-making. It said operational readiness and asset handover were treated as part of delivery rather than end-stage activities.

The contractor also said the project passed a Stage Gate Assessment Review with green outcomes and no outstanding actions.

The scheme

GRAHAM announced earlier that it had secured a £124m contract from National Highways to design and build the junction 28 improvements, let under the Route to Market Regional Delivery Partnership (RDP) framework. That contract announcement gave a value £1m lower than the £125m figure in the award statement.

Dave Brown, Highways Director at GRAHAM, said in the contract announcement that the scheme was the last of three in the package to sign.

The scope included widening the M25 anti-clockwise carriageway and building a bridge over the M25 anti-clockwise entry road to carry a new loop road, according to GRAHAM.

At contract award GRAHAM said up to 7,500 vehicles an hour travelled through the junction 28 roundabout at peak times, and that traffic in the area was expected to increase by up to 40% by 2037.

Consent and construction

Highways England submitted the development consent application to the Planning Inspectorate on 27 May 2020, according to GOV.UK, and the Secretary of State for Transport granted consent on 16 May 2022.

GRAHAM later announced that work had started. At that point it said the programme was 36 months, with completion anticipated in summer 2025.

In a subsequent update the contractor reported placing six 70-metre beams between the M25 and A12 for the new Grove Bridge.

National Highways' update of 20 October 2025 reported the opening of the free-flow loop road, which it described as the final on-road section of construction. A further update on 2 March 2026 said closures for finishing works had been rescheduled because of emergency works.

The Highways UK Excellence Awards 2026 winners list is published by the event organiser Terrapinn.