Kier order book boosted by ‘significant’ new contracts

Brian McQuade
Brian McQuade

Construction, property and services group Kier has revealed it remains on course to deliver projected targets for the current financial year.

The firm has released an update for the period from July 1 ahead of its AGM in London tomorrow.

It said: “The group remains on course to meet the board’s expectations for the current financial year, with performance from the residential and services divisions weighted towards the second half of the year, as anticipated.”



The property division has a pipeline of more than £1bn of work. Supporting the division’s move into the student accommodation market, a joint venture has been formed with Amber Infrastructure for the delivery of up to three student accommodation schemes per annum.

The first scheme comprising 240 rooms in Glasgow is valued at £20m. This site has been acquired and construction will commence shortly with project completion scheduled prior to the academic year which begins in September 2015.

Following the merger of the group’s house building activities into one division in July, it said the residential operation’s progress is on track.

Construction has a secured and probable work order book worth £2bn, which meets its budget targets for the year and is ahead of the previous year. Construction contracts awarded since 1 July include a £57m design, build, finance and maintain package for South Ayrshire Council and Hub South West Scotland in Troon and Ayr and a project to develop and construct a new 270,000 sq ft headquarters for Total E&P UK in Aberdeen, with construction commencing in spring 2015.



Bidding for a number of local authority frameworks covering London, Anglia, East Midlands, the North West, Scotland and Southern geographies is also underway totalling over £3.9bn.

Services, which provides support in sectors such as utilities, highways, maintenance and housing maintenance, boasts a £3.7bn order book, which excludes potential contract extensions of more than £2bn.

Looking ahead, the group said: “Our business offers a broad range of capabilities which, when combined with a strong regional presence, creates a resilient operating platform, both in the UK, and as we continue to secure good quality opportunities, internationally.

“The construction and services order books continue to improve to £6.3bn (June 20145 £6.2bn), representing more than 95 per cent of forecast revenue for 2015 and an encouraging pipeline for 2016.”



Brian McQuade, managing director of the Scotland and north-east England arm of Kier’s Construction division, said: “We have won a number of significant new contracts recently and our order books remains healthy. The net result of that is we are creating new jobs to cope with the ever-increasing workload.

“Kier Construction is an equity stakeholder in Hub South-West Scotland, which will deliver £400m of infrastructure investment over the next decade and in the past few weeks we have been appointed to deliver two state-of-the-art secondary schools – one in Troon and one in Ayr – on behalf of South Ayrshire Council. The design, build finance and maintain (DBFM) projects have a combined value of £57m.”


Share icon
Share this article: