Kapitol Named Top Builder Thanks to $3.5bn Workbook
Australia’s top 50 builders for 2025 have been revealed with the value of new projects almost a third again higher than the previous year.
Hubexo has released the fifth edition of its Construction League, ranking Australia’s top 50 builders by the total value of projects that began construction in 2025.
The report spans commercial, community, industrial, legal and military, and multi-residential sectors, detailing activity from total project starts to average and aggregate values.
The top 50 builders began 722 projects during the year, broadly in line with 2024 levels, but the total value of those starts surged 32 per cent to $43.9 billion.
The increase points to a market shift towards fewer but larger and more complex developments, with builders prioritising scale and quality amid sustained demand.
The top 10 firms accounted for $22.9 billion in new starts despite breaking ground on 15 per cent fewer projects compared to the previous year.
Melbourne-based Kapitol claimed the top ranking for the first time after beginning 17 projects with a combined value exceeding $3.5 billion, reflecting a focus on high-tech and large-scale commercial developments.
Kapitol director Andrew Deveson said the builder started in 2018 with a staff of three and today has more than 300 staff, a pipeline exceeding $4 billion and “some of the most complex projects in the country under way”.
Its 2025 high-value projects included Greystar’s 352-400 Macaulay Road Build to Rent project at Kensington, the District Living build-to-rent at Docklands, and NEXT DC M3 Stage 2/4 and NEXT DC M2 Stage 9 Early Works at Tullamarine, all in Victoria.
Deveson told The Urban Developer its growth during the past 12 months was down to strategically targetting projects that aligned with the firm’s values, how it wanted to work and where it could add value.
“We’ve never said it has to be ‘this’ type of project. It’s more been the people and clients that we want to work with, and the capabilities that we have,” he said.
“One of our biggest capabilities is complex, high-tech industrial projects. Data centres are clearly a real, emerging market and an emerging piece of essential infrastructure in the country.
“And the really exciting thing about that is it’s building all this new capability and capacity, both physically in the digital world, but also within our construction industry.”
Deveson said Kapitol claiming the top spot was a “really great reflection of the continuous improvement that we’ve been doing over the last eight years” as well as the support it had had from clients enabling it to become a national business.
Unsurprisingly, Deveson cited the growth of AI to “improve what we do” as the big thing ahead for Kapitol.
“It sounds really simple to say, ‘let’s use AI’, but in our context, with diverse supply chains and complicated workflows and individual projects, it’s doing more complicated tasks than may be perceived.
“The big opportunity is in the efficiency of our staff, the reduction of errors and improvement of quality.”
Lendlease, who topped the Construction League in 2022, was second, leveraging its integrated development and construction model across major urban renewal, residential and build-to-rent projects.
Built secured third position, underpinned by its activity in commercial office, residential and hospitality sectors, with an emphasis on design-led and technically demanding projects. Established in 1998 and based in Sydney, it has grown from a mid-tier contractor into a diversified national builder with a multi-billion-dollar secured pipeline.
CPB Contractors in fourth delivers large-scale infrastructure works including roads, rail, bridges, tunnelling, defence facilities and major utilities projects, often acting as the principal contractor on government-backed programs.
Formed in 2016 through the merger of Leighton Contractors and Thiess’ construction business, CPB Contractors is a wholly owned subsidiary of the CIMIC Group, one of the largest international contracting and project development groups headquartered in Australia.
Huexbo Top 50 Builders 2025
Hubexo APAC president Ashleigh Porter said the results reflected an industry adapting to labour shortages and tighter regulatory settings.
She said leading builders were moving away from traditional high-risk procurement models towards more data-driven approaches and greater use of technology.
Porter said the rankings demonstrated the sector’s capacity to evolve under economic pressure while maintaining its role in delivering major built environment outcomes.
She said the growing focus on technically complex and higher-value projects positioned the industry to remain a key driver of development in Australia.
