Who recruits senior roles on the New Hospital Programme?

The trusts, the alliance and the leadership seats between them.

Lechley does: the New Hospital Programme is one of the programmes I recruit into most often, through retained search for the leadership seats it creates at the NHS trusts and the ten Hospital 2.0 Alliance contractors.

Last updated 1 November 2026. By Scott Lechley, founder of Lechley Associates. Quantity Surveyor from 1990 to 2002, construction executive search since 2002.

The numbers

  • The programme: 46 hospital schemes in the 2025 to 2026 annual report, seven open to patients, nine in construction and 13 in active development.
  • Wave 1: 16 schemes, seven of them RAAC replacement hospitals, with main construction starting between 2025 and 2030.
  • The money: £15bn of investment per five-year wave, an average of £3bn a year.
  • The contractors: ten firms in the Hospital 2.0 Alliance, appointed in March 2026 to a framework of up to 12 years.
  • The start: eleven agreements between NHS trusts and alliance contractors signed on 30 July 2026.
  • The pay: £115,000 to £240,000 base for the senior seats on schemes above £500 million.

In more detail

The programme has moved from one-off hospitals to one standard design, Hospital 2.0, built by a fixed group of contractors. That changes which leaders are worth most. Ten contractors and a long list of trusts are now competing for the same small group of people who have delivered a major hospital, especially phased work around a live estate, and most of them are in post, many already on a wave 1 scheme.

For a hiring business, I would plan the senior appointments for each scheme a year ahead of main construction, and look beyond healthcare for leaders who have run repeatable, standardised programmes elsewhere. For a trust appointing a programme director, often for a role it has never filled before, the brief is worth getting right first: who the leader reports to, what they can decide, and how they will work with a national team as well as a contractor.

Read more

Common questions

Who are the Hospital 2.0 Alliance contractors?

Ten firms appointed in March 2026 to a framework of up to 12 years: Bovis, Dragados, Integrated Health Projects (VINCI Building with Sir Robert McAlpine), John Graham, Kier, Laing O'Rourke, Morgan Sindall, Sacyr UK, Skanska and Willmott Dixon.

What leadership roles does the programme create?

At each trust, a programme director, client-side commercial and estates leadership, and the people who hold the clinical brief. At each contractor, a framework director, then a project director, a commercial director and a pre-construction and design lead for each scheme.

What do programme-level seats pay?

On schemes above £500 million, the senior seats sit at £115,000 to £240,000 base, with total packages of £300,000 to £425,000 and above once bonus, long-term incentives, car and pension are counted.

Start a conversation

If you are hiring into the New Hospital Programme, or weighing a seat on it, I would welcome the chance to talk. No hard sell, no obligation.

Book a Conversation