Morgan Sindall lands £68m Salford Business School contract

Morgan Sindall has been selected as preferred partner to deliver the new £67.9m Salford Business School in Manchester. The contract makes the contractor the lead builder on one of the most significant university projects in the North West, with completion scheduled for spring 2029.

The scheme works in two stages. First, Morgan Sindall will demolish Crescent House, a building that currently occupies the site. Then it will construct a purpose-built 79,500 sq ft home for the Business School in its place — roughly the floor area of a full-size football pitch spread across the building.

Who is paying, and who is running it?

The University of Salford is funding the project entirely from its own resources. Delivery sits inside the wider 240-acre Crescent Salford masterplan, a regeneration programme led by ECF — the partnership between developer Muse, insurer L&G and Homes England's National Housing Bank — working alongside Salford City Council and the University of Salford.

That structure matters. It means the Business School isn't a standalone campus building but an anchor project in a district-scale regeneration effort covering an area larger than 130 football pitches.

What happens next, and when?

Morgan Sindall now enters a pre-construction period with the design team, running until March 2027. The timeline after that is conditional on planning consent:

• Pre-construction and design work: now through March 2027
• Site start: expected April 2027, if planning is secured
• Completion: scheduled for spring 2029

Steven Gregory, North West area director at Morgan Sindall Construction, framed the win against the city's broader transformation: "Salford is changing fast, and the University is at the heart of that change."

"The Business School will give students, local businesses and the community a place to learn, meet and develop ideas together, and we're proud to be helping build it," Gregory said.

What else is moving on campus?

The Business School isn't the only project advancing. Plans to refurbish the Faraday building have been approved. The building has sat vacant for several years and will be converted into 3,500m² of high-quality, flexible workspace for the University's professional services teams.

Charlie Alcroft, development manager at ECF, placed both schemes in the same trajectory: "The Business School is the next major step for Crescent Salford, following planning approval for Faraday and the progress being made on the acoustics laboratory."

"Bringing a new home for business education onto the Crescent will draw more students, businesses and visitors into this part of the city and help connect the campus with the communities around it," Alcroft said.

Taken together, the three projects — Faraday's refurbishment, the acoustics laboratory and now the £67.9m Business School — show the Crescent masterplan shifting from planning approvals into physical delivery, with Morgan Sindall holding the first of what could be several major construction packages on the 240-acre site.