Naylor Love beats Hawkins to top spot as 10 busiest builders ranked by biggest jobs started in 2025

This year, Naylor Love tops the list once again.

The league ranks builders and developer/builders by the total value of projects started in 2025.

The builders work in the commercial, community, industrial, legal, military and multi-residential sectors.

Data is based on Hubexo’s research, as well as submissions from builders.

“We have excluded companies that declined to be listed in the league.

“The civil, infrastructure, transport, utilities, energy, mining, oil and gas sectors have been excluded because these are areas that warrant separate attention,” a statement from Hubexo said.

This business is headed by Bruno Goedeke, who joined the company in 2005. This builder’s projects are high-profile.

They include Sylvia Park’s popular new Ikea, opened on December 4, and Queenstown’s Skyline gondola upgrade and extensions.

Naylor Love’s largest job won in 2025 was the University of Auckland’s $200 million+ B230 project, a 13-level tower replacing the Law Faculty and Maidment Theatre.

The new 20,000sq m block will have a multi-purpose performing arts faculty with retractable seating, replacing the Maidment, demolished in 2016.

The second-largest Naylor Love projects in the $100m-$199m range are:

In the $50m-$99m range, Naylor Love won:

The New World Stoke in Nelson is in the $20m-$49m league for Naylor Love.

Craig Treloar is executive general manager of Hawkins, owned by ASX- and NZX-listed Downer.

Treloar heads the transport and infrastructure divisions.

Hawkins was started by a Kiwi, Fred Hawkins, in his garage in the early 1940s.

Hawkins’ top projects won in 2025 are:

The company’s workload has been boosted lately after it secured an $800m contract for the new terminals at Auckland Airport.

The airport company contracted Hawkins for the delivery of a new domestic jet terminal building, the major structure in Auckland’s terminal integration programme.

That would be an “economic engine”, creating 2500 jobs at peak and supporting many thousands more, particularly in South Auckland, it said last year.

Classic is headed by Peter Cooney and headquartered in Tauranga.

This is the only build-to-sell residential builder to feature in the top 10 list.

The business was founded in 1996 in the Bay of Plenty by Cooney and Matt Lagerberg.

It specialises in design and build and sells houses as well as house and land packages.

This is a third-generation family-owned builder, established about 70 years ago. It has a workforce of more than 350 people.

Its head office is in Wellington.

Waterfront office refurbishment for Precinct Properties’ InterContinental Hotel was one of the builder’s big projects.

The new $120m Catalina Bay apartments at Hobsonville Point is another of its more high-profile jobs of late.

Some of the major projects LT McGuinness started in 2025 are:

LT McGuinness also won the 2025 Master Builders supreme commercial award for a $10m+ building with Te Herenga Waka Victoria University of Wellington‘s Ngā Mokopuna The Living Building, at 42-50 Kelburn Parade.

Dominion Constructors is Auckland-headquartered, family-owned and has been trading for more than 45 years.

“Proud to be a 100% New Zealand-owned and part of the Russell Group of companies, Dominion has expanded from its beginnings as a concrete structures specialist to now employ more than 200 people and operate five divisions,” it says.

Its largest current project is a $190m contract for the East Tāmaki manufacturing research hub for Fisher & Paykel Healthcare.

Second-largest is Christchurch’s $96m Sheraton Hotel contract, to refurbish and repair the earthquake-hit ex-Noah’s in the centre of the city.

The third-largest is a $50m contract with the Tāmaki Regeneration Company at Pt England. Pirangi comprises 88 public and shared-ownership homes of two to five bedrooms.

Other Dominion Constructor projects are:

In November, a sod-turning ceremony marked the start of a multibillion-dollar project to develop 307ha in Auckland’s southeast at Beachlands.

The Beachlands South Limited Partnership is Russell Group, the NZ Super Fund and Ngāi Tai Hapai, an investment vehicle for Ngāi Tai ki Tāmaki and other local iwi.

Southbase is a group of independent specialist companies.

This builder was founded in 2013 as part of the recovery response to the Canterbury earthquakes.

“Since then, we have delivered for a diverse portfolio of public and private sector clients and become known as a proven performer in the New Zealand commercial construction industry,” it says.

The business is New Zealand-owned and operated and worked on the new One New Zealand Stadium Te Kaha in Christchurch.

That opened on Friday night.

The biggest Southbase contracts won in 2025 included:

This builder was established in 2011 and delivers commercial, industrial and residential buildings.

It is headquartered at Rosedale on Auckland’s North Shore.

3Eyes was founded by director Sean Li, a civil engineering graduate with experience in the building and construction industry since 2005.

The company has grown from a construction-focused business into a full-service provider.

It offers project management, subdivision development, design and construction services.

Dan Bosher heads Icon in New Zealand.

This company is owned by Kajima Corporation of Japan.

Icon was to finish the $300m Seascape apartment but developer Shundi Customs is in receivership.

Icon’s largest job in New Zealand is a $136m contract.

That is the $201m, 638-unit 32-level student accommodation tower at 256 Queen St in the centre of Auckland for Precinct Properties.

That block will be about 400m from the University of Auckland and AUT University.

Icon also built The Pacifica apartments in Auckland and the new northern Auckland Council headquarters at Albany.

This build-to-rent apartment specialist has not made the top 10 previously, so this is a debut by the company headed by Shane Brealey, working with Sam Stubbs.

Simplicity is transforming tenancies in Auckland, providing new fit-for-purpose, long-term accommodation.

Its 2331 build-to-rent units are planned or under construction on seven sites at:

Haydn & Rollett is headquartered at 1 Warehouse Way, Northcote.

Kim Barrett is the majority shareholder and managing director of the company that built the $100m+ Costco Wholesale Westgate.

The company’s largest contract is building a $290m, 960-unit student accommodation tower at 22 Stanley St, Parnell for Precinct Properties.

The company started that last June and the tower is due to be finished by 2028.

Private developer Greg Reidy teamed with Haydn & Rollett to be a force in the student accommodation sector.

Carlaw Park is a product of this collaboration: stages one and two have 770 beds in 220 units.

The two also developed what is now called Stuart McCutcheon House: the $250m, 203-unit, 10-level block with 753 beds at the Stanley St/Nicholls Lane intersection.

All up, 416 apartments were developed, each with three to six bedrooms, resulting in 907 bedrooms in this block, Reidy said.

Anne Gibson has been the Herald’s property editor for 26 years, written books and covered property extensively here and overseas.