All Features articles – Page 632
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Features
How we can compete
In the battle to attract graduates, how do you compete with sexy industries offering starting salaries 10k higher? The last of our recruitment specials reports that training may be the key.
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Features
Robert Syms: The builder from the old school
Picture yourself on the Tory back benches, two years into your Westminster career, when you re suddenly appointed to a junior role on the shadow environment team. The transport brief is ideal for perfecting your soundbites for the Daily Mail, but then there s the construction portfolio, which everyone knows ...
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Features
Breakfast of champions
A diet of missed breakfasts and rushed lunches at the desk washed down with cups of coffee isn t good for you or your employees. A healthier workforce will lead to enhanced performance.
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Features
The one that got away
Julia Smith had no burning ambition to be a management consultant. In fact, she was a civil engineering masters student at Birmingham University and being sponsored by a major contractor when she went to a milk-round interview with Andersen Consulting. When I went, I had no idea what they ...
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Features
Contractors and housebuilders by employees' average pay
Fit-out and construction management firm Interior Services Group was a lucrative place to work for most employees last year. Earlier this month, it announced pre-tax profit up 91% to £4.2m on a slightly reduced turnover of £370m. The company actually paid its staff less than it did in 1998, but ...
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Features
Appointments
Contractors Nigel Marks, formerly of Taylor Woodrow, has been appointed development director for Ballast Wiltshier s South-east region. Civil engineering and construction group May Gurney has appointed Bob Drew business development manager, based in Cambridge. Kvaerner Construction has appointed Sunil Shah Singh (right) managing director of Kvaerner Cementation India. Housebuilders ...
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Features
They’re back
A combination of shrewd populism and a government with more leaks than a sea-going sieve has pulled the Tories back from oblivion. So meet Archie Norman and Robert Syms, the men who must convince construction that now might be a good time to get to know the next government. Additional ...
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Features
Archie Norman: Why the Tories’ business plan will work
Archie Norman is worried. He has seen the new offices he will soon inhabit at Portcullis House and is unimpressed. It s a funny set-up, he says. The furnishings are expensive but the actual accommodation is very modest. There are a number of small offices with ...
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Features
Who’d employ an architect?
At least, who d employ one if they are using the new standard contract, SFA/99? It unreasonably limits an architect s liabilities and weighs down a client with onerous obligations.
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Features
It’s good to talk
Rob Smith of Hays Montrose explains why managers have to keep their lines of communication open.
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Features
Top 75 contractors by contracting turnover
In this table, we have ranked firms by the amount of contracting they do. Figures for non-contracting activities, including property, housebuilding and facilities management (which makes up much of the "other" column), are also shown. Just edging into the top spot is Bovis, which handled £2.3bn of contracting – 60% ...
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Features
Top 75 contractors by contracting operating profit
This table is intended to show the profit companies are making from building. Balfour Beatty tops the stakes here with £96m, although its figures are boosted by the fact that all of its activities – including considerable facilities management work for its private finance initiative contracts – are included under ...
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Features
Top 75 contractors by contracting operating margin
This table tells two main stories. First, that the large specialists still make the fattest margins. Steel constructor Severfield-Rowen reported 6.4% and groundwork specialist Keller got a handsome 6.2%. East Anglian contractor Carter also made an impressive 4.4% return, and concrete firm O'Rourke managed 3.6%. Second, it shows that most ...
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Features
Top 25 contractors in FM by FM turnover
This table was drawn up in recognition of the large number of contractors carrying out infrastructure maintenance and management in the quest for longer-term income streams and better margins.The top of the table is dominated by companies better known as big builders. Amec comes top, with a turnover of £850m, ...
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Features
Top 25 housebuilders by housing operating margins
Last year was a good time to be a housebuilder. And it was the country's two remaining volume housebuilders – Barratt and Wimpey – that dominated in terms of turnover and profit. However, when it comes to margins, they trailed the pack in 16th and 24th place respectively. Smaller rivals, ...
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Features
The top 100
Welcome to Building's largest-ever assessment of the top contractors and housebuilders in the UK. This year, we have made a few key changes to our usual format.
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Features
Top 100 contractors and housebuilders by turnover
UK construction had a boom year in 1999, with the top 100 companies turning over more than £43bn. Total pre-tax profit was almost £2.2bn and the average margin was 4.9%. The top 50 companies – which account for 85% of turnover and pre-tax profit in the top 100 – enjoyed ...
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Features
Just the job
Phil Clark asks the managing director of fit-out firm Newco Interiors what s happening indoors.