Author Archives: Joshua Stein

Contractor Babcock Rail has slipped to a pre-tax loss after work dried up on a number of frameworks and some client budgets decreased. Babcock Rail reported a pre-tax loss of £5.2m in the year to 31 March 2025, after it made a pre-tax profit of £4.8m in the prior year.…

Remediation of brownfield land needs boosting to vamp up near-stagnant materials sales, a leading trade body has said. Sales of building materials inched up 0.8 per cent in the year to September 2025, according to the latest Builders Merchant Building Index (BMBI), compiled by the Builders Merchants Federation (BMF). The…

Funds from the Construction Industry Training Board (CITB) pushed up the number of new entrants into the construction sector by a quarter, according to its annual accounts. The CITB said the number of sector entrants in 2024/25 was up by 27 per cent, exceeding its aim of a 15 per…

Cuts to course funding by the Construction Industry Training Board (CITB) could threaten site safety and exacerbate the shortfall in experienced site managers, the sector has warned. On Monday (8 December), the CITB announced it will scrap funding for short courses and level 7 qualifications from January. The sudden move…

A 188-year-old construction firm based in Manchester is the latest to become an employee-ownership trust (EOT). On Monday, Emanuel Whittaker announced it will be transitioning to an EOT, joining the likes of CN100 firms Gilbert Ash and John F Hunt. Financial details of the transaction have not been disclosed. The…

Companies House has suspended a warning notice that it had issued to contractor Ardmore Group over its late accounts. The group – the 48th biggest contractor in the UK – was last month served a compulsory strike-off notice, which is issued if a firm fails to comply with Companies House…

Unsecured creditors linked to a collapsed mechanical and electrical (M&E) specialist are “likely” to receive some sort of payout. The administrator for Hull-based Tucker Mechanical and Electrical Building Services said the firm owed £4.8m to more than 200 suppliers when it went under on 2 October. David Kemp, from insolvency…

Administrators for ISG are pursuing a specialist contractor and AtkinsRéalis for £4m worth of damages over an allegedly faulty school roof. The legal action has been launched against consultancy AtkinsRéalis PPS and roofing contractor Longworth Building Services over defects at a special educational needs (SEN) school it built in Bury,…

Turnover at mechanical and electrical (M&E) specialist Jaguar Building Services has exceeded £100m for the first time. Jaguar also increased its pre-tax profit from £3.5m to £5.8m in the year to 31 March 2025, thanks to its “ever-expanding client pool” and expanding major projects portfolio. The London contractor expects to…

A Buckinghamshire-based envelope contractor has pushed through a £2m hit from ISG’s collapse to “sustain operational momentum”. Middlesex Facades said in its latest annual accounts that it had to write off £2m following ISG’s collapse last September, but that it secured contracts with new clients on ISG sites to see…