Jacobs Wins Design Role on New Zealand’s Warkworth to Te Hana Highway

Jacobs announced on November 5, 2026 that ACCIONA had selected it to provide multidisciplinary design and project delivery services for the Warkworth to Te Hana Ara Tūhono section of New Zealand’s Northland Corridor. The New Zealand government estimates the total project at approximately NZ$3.6 billion (US$2.1 billion).

The selection covers a defined technical package rather than the entire highway contract. Jacobs will design all 15 bridges, utility relocations and building facilities packages, with work spanning design management, geotechnical engineering, digital engineering and building services. No standalone value for Jacobs’ scope was disclosed; the government estimate applies to the whole development.

Jacobs describes the scheme as New Zealand’s largest public-private partnership transportation infrastructure project. José Angel Andrés López, ACCIONA’s managing director of construction for Australia and New Zealand, said: “The Warkworth to Te Hana project represents much more than a new motorway. It is an investment in the people, businesses and communities that rely on safe and reliable transport connections every day.”

A Role Within an Existing PPP

The NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi project record shows that the broader delivery contract predates Jacobs’ announcement. NZTA awarded Northway the contract to design, build, finance, operate and maintain Warkworth to Te Hana through a public-private partnership on July 30, 2026. Jacobs’ selection is a subsequent role within that delivery effort, not the award of the overarching PPP.

Northway comprises Acciona Concesiones SL, Aberdeen Investments, Global Sustainable Infrastructure GP IV Ltd and Acciona Construction New Zealand Ltd, alongside New Zealand partners including Downer New Zealand and AECOM. ACCIONA’s selection adds Jacobs’ design package to that broader consortium-led delivery structure.

NZTA lists the project in design, with estimated project dates from August 2026 to December 2033. The first sod was turned on October 30, 2026, marking the next phase rather than immediate full-scale construction. Detailed design is continuing alongside site preparation and enabling works, and NZTA expects major construction activity to ramp up later in 2027.

Route Scale and the Transport Case

The project comprises approximately 26 kilometers (16 miles) of four-lane expressway, grade-separated interchanges at Warkworth, Wellsford and Te Hana, twin tunnels through Dome Valley and the bridges in Jacobs’ package. The indicative design includes an approximately one-kilometer twin-bore tunnel in Dome Valley. The protected route travels west of Warkworth and east of Wellsford and Te Hana before reconnecting with State Highway 1 near Waimanu Road.

Warkworth to Te Hana forms the first section of the wider Northland Corridor and is classified as a Road of National Significance. It will connect to the Ara Tūhono–Pūhoi to Warkworth motorway. NZTA describes the broader corridor as a 100-kilometer strategic route between Warkworth and Whangārei.

NZTA projects an approximately 7–10-minute travel-time improvement per trip between Warkworth, Wellsford and Te Hana, alongside the removal of nearly 1,000 heavy vehicles per day from State Highway 1 through Wellsford and Te Hana. The benefits case also includes reduced congestion on Wellsford’s main street and a reliable additional route separate from the existing State Highway 1. Those outcomes frame the highway as both a freight connection and a resilience measure, rather than solely an increase in road capacity.

For Jacobs, the immediate significance is the timing and breadth of its role: its bridge, geotechnical, digital and facilities work is entering the program while detailed design and enabling works are under way. That places the company’s design contribution ahead of the main construction ramp-up, when the route’s physical components move toward delivery.