Learn how we’re drawing on years of experience on the scheme to help Skanska accelerate design, reduce risk and move the M54 to M6 Link Road towards construction.
The absence of a direct motorway link between the M54 and northbound M6 has forced traffic onto local roads across the West Midlands, causing delays and congestion.
In July 2025, the U.K. government confirmed funding for the M54 to M6 Link Road as one of five major road schemes in the North and Midlands, part of a wider package of more than 50 road and rail upgrades.
Appointed by National Highways’ contractor Skanska in December 2025, we are delivering the detailed design for the scheme. Drawing on our longstanding involvement in the project, we are supporting Skanska in accelerating delivery, aiding informed decision-making and managing risk against a critical statutory deadline.
A long-awaited connection
The new 1.6-mile dual carriageway link will connect M54 Junction 1 with M6 Junction 11 near Featherstone, Wolverhampton, closing a longstanding strategic gap in the road network. The scheme also includes improvements at both motorway junctions.
Its route to construction has not been straightforward, which included a two-year pause in activities before. Skanska was appointed to take forward early works for the scheme in 2025.
By then, the clock was already ticking. Under the terms of the project’s Development Consent Order (DCO), works must begin before consent expires in May 2027.
That left Skanska with a compressed timeframe to get to grips with a complex scheme developed over many years, establish what work remained, explore opportunities to refine the design and prepare for construction. This is where we have been able to support Skanska to achieve a positive outcome.
Drawing on years of experience
We have supported the M54 to M6 Link Road through several stages of its development, including preliminary design and the DCO process, before continuing as designer under the previous contractor.
This longstanding involvement has given us detailed knowledge of the scheme, its constraints and the thinking behind earlier design decisions. Crucially, many of the technical specialists and design leads involved in those earlier stages were still available when Skanska took over delivery.
Instead of spending valuable programme time reconstructing years of design history, we could therefore accelerate Skanska’s understanding of the scheme, help define the scope of detailed design, identify gaps and outstanding information, and focus on priorities and what needed to happen next.
[Our] longstanding involvement has given us detailed knowledge of the scheme, its constraints and the thinking behind earlier design decisions. Crucially, many of the technical specialists and design leads involved in those earlier stages were still available when Skanska took over delivery.
Helping Skanska get up to speed
Transferring that knowledge effectively has required close collaboration with Skanska.
As part of Skanska’s due diligence and familiarisation with the scheme, specialists from both organisations came together through a series of collaborative workshops. These sessions allowed teams to examine the existing design, discuss its constraints and build a shared understanding of how and why it had evolved.
We made specialists with previous experience of the project available throughout the process, giving Skanska access not just to the technical information, but to the context behind it.
That shared understanding is also helping the team explore opportunities to refine the design. With a clear picture of the existing scheme and the factors that shaped it, we have supported Skanska to assess where changes can realistically be considered and how they might support delivery.
Tapping into specialist expertise across AECOM
Delivering the detailed design requires expertise across almost every aspect of the scheme.
Working as one integrated team, people from across multiple AECOM offices and sectors are actively contributing towards delivery. This includes specialisms such as highways, structures, geotechnical, environmental and water-based design disciplines plus land referencing and planning specialists. This has been supplemented through ensuring, where possible, that discipline leads with previous project experience were made available to provide continuity and coordination across the scheme.
Cutting through-traffic on local roads, strengthening regional connections
The long-term benefits of the scheme extend well beyond the motorway network.
Without a direct motorway connection, drivers travelling between the M54 and northbound M6 currently use local roads including the A460, which passes through Featherstone, Hilton and Shareshill.
The new link is expected to take up to 22,000 vehicles a day off local roads, cutting journey times for commuters and businesses. It is also forecast to generate more than £600 million for the local economy, strengthening connections between Telford, Wolverhampton, Staffordshire and the wider West Midlands.
By helping move the M54 to M6 Link Road from design towards delivery, we are bringing those benefits closer for the communities, businesses and road users that depend on the region’s transport network.