Atkins boss says global work will bolster UK business

Engineer Atkins’ UK chief executive David Tonkin hopes that work from international projects will bolster the UK arm of the business in the current tough market.

Speaking to Building following the publication of the firm’s results today, Tonkin said: “We are looking at how we can move work to people rather than people to work.

“These [international] projects provide good in-fills and we can swing our resources.”

Revenue at engineer Atkins increased 9.4% in the last financial year but the UK arm of the business was the only part that saw revenues shrink, the firm’s results showed.

Revenue rose to £1.7bn in the year to 31 March 2012 but this was driven by overseas growth.

The UK business saw a decline in revenues of 7% to £859m, with more than 50% of the group’s revenues now coming from outside the UK. Operating profit in the UK fell 16% from £61.4m in 2011 to £51.6m, with margin down from 6.6% to 6%. Staff numbers also fell from 9,640 to 8,924 by 31 March.

Pre-tax profit across the group was rose 49% to £135.5m, although this was largely driven by a one off gain from restructuring the firm’s pension scheme and the sale of its UK asset management business in November last year.

It said underlying pre-tax profit was £102m - a 12% rise on last year.

The firm said UK trading was in line with its expectations. UK revenue was hit by delays in rail work coming to market, which Tonkin said cost between £6m and £7m in revenues, and the sale of Atkins’ asset management business in November last year.

“We have actually performed particularly strongly in a tough market,” said Tonkin.

He said he expected all sectors in which the firm operates to grow slightly this year but that conditions remained difficult.

Tonkin said the firm was targeting opportunities to work on a number of Malaysian high speed rail and metro projects following prime minister David Cameron’s visit to the country earlier this year.

He said there were also emerging opportunities in Denmark and India for further rail and metro development project which could see work done in the UK.

He added that working across countries bolstered the UK firm’s capabilities. “For our clients they know they are going to get a full capability of industry with experience from other markets,” he said.

The firm currently has 1,200 vacancies in the UK and is recruiting staff, he said.