Under the radar: How Advance Construction Scotland turns challenging ground into opportunity

For a business with an annual turnover in excess of £350 million and more than 2,000 directly employed staff, Advance Construction Scotland has spent a surprisingly long time flying under the radar.

That is beginning to change.

“We have always sort of operated under the radar,” she says. “In the last few years, we’ve put ourselves out there, whether that be LinkedIn or other social media channels, doing more public and industry events.”

Founded on civil engineering and groundworks, Advance has grown considerably over more than 25 years. Today, the wider business encompasses 11 associated companies, with capabilities spanning civil engineering, groundworks, renewables delivery, land regeneration, utilities, structures, plant, flooring, quarries, transport and vehicle rental.

It means that Advance’s involvement in any project can extend far beyond a single package of work, with expertise and resources available across multiple divisions in the group.

For Breen, that breadth and capability is one of the company’s greatest strengths.

“We are a big operation employing a massive amount of people, however, sometimes people still really aren’t aware of the scale of the business or the capabilities we have within the group. Once you point it out, people suddenly realise they see our vans, plant and sites everywhere.”

Regeneration from the ground up

One area that demonstrates the group’s ability to diversify is AC Land Regeneration, established as a department within the main group around a decade ago; it now operates as a separate division identifying, acquiring and unlocking challenging land with development potential.

“Our owner, Seamus Shields, had a vision to start buying and remediating land,” Breen explains. “It created another revenue stream for the division itself. More importantly, it also created work streams for the main construction business and other divisions within the group.”

The AC Land team take a project from first principles through to sale. “We take any project that comes into us, we take it from feasibility stage right through to its end use,” she says. That means a technical feasibility assessment and valuation, followed by conveyancing and purchase, before the site goes through planning and the technical reports that go with it. Once an end user – often an affordable housing provider or a private developer – is identified, the site is sold on, with Breen’s team managing the conveyancing through to completion.

It’s a model built on controlling land directly rather than developing on behalf of someone else, which the company says allows it to accelerate delivery and coordinate more effectively with joint venture partners. According to Advance’s own figures, AC Land Regeneration currently controls sites across Scotland representing more than 5,000 residential units in the pipeline – positioning it among the country’s most active land regeneration specialists.

The Tullis Russell project

If there’s one project that captures what AC Land Regeneration does, it’s the redevelopment of the former Tullis Russell Paper Mill site in Glenrothes – the division’s first major infrastructure project, now home to 75 residential units.

“That site offered up every challenge you can imagine,” Breen shared. “Some we knew about and some we just didn’t know about until we took control of the site.” The scale of the transformation, she says, still stands out to her. “To see the images from before and after, it’s pretty phenomenal what we, as a group, have managed to do up there. It’s also a testament to the house builders on that site. They’ve made it fantastic.”

Behind the transformation is a cost that rarely gets talked about, she argues. “I think people don’t really appreciate the cost of that remediation and what it takes to do that, and what that can actually do to a project financially. It can make or break it. All the money, as I always say, is always in the ground.”

The planning problem

Ask Breen where the biggest obstacle in her job sits, and the word planning follows without hesitation. “It’s probably one of the single biggest challenges that we have, and I can safely speak for probably house builders out there as well,” she says, pointing to a combination of recent legislative change, council staffing levels and budget pressures.

The scale of the delay can be stark. One site, she says, has been owned by the company since the middle of 2020 – in the early months of the pandemic – with the decision notice only issued this year. “They’re major projects. They are challenging, but never in our wildest dreams did we expect it to take this long.”

Renewables, data centres and where the growth is

For all the frustration with planning, Breen is sure about where the opportunity in Scottish construction now lies. “Scotland is in a fantastic place in terms of infrastructure opportunities, opportunities at the moment,” she says. “We are on the cusp of potentially becoming a world leader.”

Data centres, in particular, are on her radar, with Advance currently progressing a proposed hyperscale data centre site. “It’s been a really interesting journey,” she says, noting that the project has given her a close-up view of how the UK compares internationally on that front, with hopes of catching up with other markets in the short term.

It reflects a broader shift the group is making. Historically weighted heavily toward residential development, Advance is now actively targeting new clients in industrial and commercial markets alongside its continued residential pipeline. This forms part of a wider strategy of continued growth across the group’s divisions.

Backing the Scottish Construction Summit

Advance’s sponsorship of this year’s Scottish Construction Summit builds on what Breen describes as a long-standing relationship with Scottish Construction Now. But it also reflects a deliberate shift in how the company presents itself publicly. A recent family open weekend event held at Glasgow’s Riverside Museum, she says, was a revelation. “It really opened our eyes to the interest in construction… we’re still getting people emailing us asking us for hi-vis vests for the kids; we had run out as they were so popular.”

For Advance, that creates an opportunity not only to showcase the scale and diversity of the group, but to promote construction as an industry capable of offering an enormous range of careers and opportunities.

“If we can garner some interest in terms of working in the industry, whether that’s with Advance or any other part of the construction industry in Scotland, then that is a positive outcome,” Breen says.

“Even if one person attends the Summit and makes the decision that construction is an industry they want to be part of, then I think that would be a success.”

It is perhaps an appropriate next step for a company which has spent more than 25 years building much of its reputation through delivery rather than publicity.

Advance may have operated under the radar for much of that time, but with a growing group of businesses, more than 2,000 directly employed staff, an expanding development pipeline and increasing involvement in some of Scotland’s emerging infrastructure sectors, it is becoming considerably harder to overlook.

To visit Advance Construction Scotland at the Scottish Construction Summit on October 22, sign up for free here.