Naylor Love has secured the top position in Hubexo’s 2026 Construction League rankings, recording 103 project commencements with a combined value of just over $1 billion. The result sees the contractor reclaim New Zealand’s number one ranking and reinforces its position as one of the country’s most established and respected construction companies.
Compiled using project intelligence tracked through Hubexo’s LeadManager platform, the fourth edition of the Construction League ranks New Zealand’s top 50 builders by the value of projects that commenced construction during 2025 across the commercial, community, industrial, legal and military, and multi-residential sectors.
This year’s top 50 builders commenced construction on 842 projects, a modest 5% decline on the previous year. The combined value of those commencements increased slightly to $8.7 billion, underscoring the market’s continued focus on pipeline quality in the face of significanteconomic headwinds.
For Naylor Love, this year’s number one ranking marks a return to familiar territory. The builder topped the Construction League in 2024..
The privately owned contractor traces its roots back 116 years and has evolved from a predominantly South Island builder into a truly national construction business with operations stretching across New Zealand.
While the ranking reflects a strong year of project commencements, CEO Bruno Goedeke says becoming New Zealand’s largest builder has never been the company’s primary objective.
“We’ve never aimed to be the largest construction company in New Zealand”, Goedeke told Hubexo.
“But it is still affirmation that you must be doing something right if you’re winning that amount of work.”
Naylor Love’s 2025 commencements included the Hawke’s Bay Regional Prison Accelerated Capacity Project (ACP), Papamoa Plaza stage 3, new buildings at Wellington High School, and the New World Stoke development, reflecting a continued commitment across government, education, retail and community sectors.
For Goedeke, Naylor Love’s reputation remains the foundation of long-term success.
“It doesn’t matter how many cups of coffee I have with clients and what the relationships are. If you don’t deliver your project successfully, on time and to a high quality, you’re not going to win a lot of projects.”
“You win the next job because you do a really good job of the one you’ve just done.”
Yet Goedeke believes relationships and culture remain central to Naylor Love’s success.
“We will hang a door for a good client. We’ll do a $300 million project for a good client. It doesn’t matter.”
The Naylor family remains closely involved in the business and continues to influence the values that have shaped the company for generations.
“Honesty and integrity are still at the heart of how we operate”, Goedeke said. “If you shake someone’s hand and say a deal is done, it’s done.”
Alongside that cultural foundation, Naylor Love has spent recent years strengthening its long-term strategic planning, business improvement processes and operational capability.
The result is a business focused less on rapid expansion and more on consistently becoming better.
“If every part of your business improves a little bit each year, when you look back five years later the difference can be enormous.”
That philosophy of continuous improvement is becoming increasingly important as New Zealand’s construction market evolves.
Among the most significant changes reshaping the industry is the growing shift toward design-and-build procurement.
Goedeke believes New Zealand is increasingly following a path already established in Australia, with clients engaging contractors earlier and embracing more collaborative design-and-build procurement models. Growing project complexity, cost pressures, and the need for greater delivery certainty are accelerating the shift.
At the same time, the industry is rapidly embracing digital technologies, artificial intelligence, and new approaches to project delivery.
For Naylor Love, those trends are closely connected to another strategic priority.
“We have a strategy of building faster than anyone else”, Goedeke said.
“If you can build faster while maintaining quality, projects become more efficient and ultimately more affordable.”
Despite current market challenges, Goedeke remains optimistic about the industry’s long-term outlook, citing regulatory reform, increasing collaboration, and a growing focus on quality.
For Naylor Love, the focus remains firmly on continual improvement rather than headline growth.
The company’s nationwide footprint, spanning major centres and regional markets across New Zealand, provides resilience through economic cycles and enables it to respond as demand shifts between sectors and geographies.
“We’re constantly getting better at all aspects of our business”, Goedeke said. “I feel very positive about the next five years.”
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The 2026 edition of the Construction League is proudly presented in partnership with Cupix, our Major Partner, and our Event Partner, BuildNZ.