Group Chief Financial Officer's Statement
An improvement in margins has driven the year-on-year progress through enhanced contract models, leveraging our vertically integrated delivery model and the Group’s industry-leading innovation.
Order book (FY25: £11.9bn)
Net assets (FY25: £218.7m)
Our FY26 results have been built on a foundation of discipline. A deliberate strategy to build resilience and certainty into our business provides us with the opportunity to invest in our people and capabilities for the future.
The Group delivered substantial growth in both profit and cash across the year, building on last year’s results and consolidating the strength of our financial position. Pre-exceptional EBIT of £157.7m was achieved, up £46.4m or 41.7 per cent (FY25: £111.3m), and year-end cash of £696.3m (FY25: £513.1m). An improvement in margins has driven the year-on-year progress through enhanced contract models, leveraging our vertically integrated delivery model, and the Group’s industry-leading innovation. This has led to an increase in our pre-exceptional gross margin from 6.9 per cent to 9.7 per cent.
This deliberate approach has involved a continued focus on our priority sectors together with maintaining disciplined margin and overhead control. The results of the industry-leading work our people do to innovate is clear through our research and development expenditure credits. This twin track of prudence and focus on key sectors, alongside the ability to innovate in ways that will define the terms for a safe and sustainable construction industry, position us for the unprecedented demands of 21st century infrastructure needs.
Our growth in profit – against a backdrop of significant global headwinds and uncertainty – demonstrates why we remain confident in our strategy.
To achieve such growth requires the underlying confidence that comes from a record order book. Ours has grown to £17.2bn (FY25: £11.9bn), which reflects the confidence that we are delivering safe, good value programmes, underpinned by the resilience to absorb changes, inflation impacts, and regional political shifts. The order book represents approximately five years’ revenue.
Along with an increase in our net assets to £294.8m from £218.7m in FY25, we delivered £262.0m (FY25: £128.1m) of cash flow from operations, which converted more cash than profit in the year with a cash conversion ratio of 139 per cent, demonstrating the strength of the financial result in FY26.
We will continue to build resilience and provide certainty by effectively managing risk, taking a disciplined approach to working in our priority sectors where we can deliver the most value, and choosing clients that share our commitment to delivering major projects in true partnership. I am confident that the discipline of our approach and the skill of our people will ensure our continued success.