Well, it's not exactly the Bloods and the Crips fighting street by fractured street for control of Los Angeles, but the struggle for the British project and programme management market and its mouthwatering margins is about as intense. This week, contractor Laing O'Rourke muscled its way into this turf war, poaching staff from US engineer Bechtel to set up a programme management arm. Meanwhile, on the other side of the street, QS Gleeds is plotting to grow its project management arm from a fifth of turnover to a half by 2012. Things could be about to get downright ugly. The kingpins of project management are the big QSs such as Turner & Townsend, Davis Langdon, EC Harris and Gleeds, and engineers such as Atkins and Mott MacDonald. These firms have been establishing themselves on this ground for a while, and some, like Gleeds, have big plans for the future.
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