UK contractors make up over one-quarter of top 100 list

Balfour Beatty has been named as the seventh-largest construction firm in Europe, returning the UK to the top 10 for the first time in recent memory.

Although only one British firm was named in the top 10, as many as 28 of the top 100 largest construction companies in Europe were from the UK. Taylor Wimpey was the next largest, at 13th on the list, with Carillion soon after at 15th. Vinci, the French contractor, was named the largest in Europe.

The news comes from a report, the European Powers of Construction 2008, produced by Deloitte. It also found that construction makes up 6.64% of UK GDP.

Jack Kelly, infrastructure partner at Deloitte, said: “Construction contractors are typically one of the last sectors to experience a recession as order backlogs are completed. It is hoped that they will not be as seriously affected as they have been in the past due to their diversification in the nineties into long-term asset maintenance contracts and the need for the UK to address its infrastructure gap.”

The list is calculated by the amount of overall turnover stemming from the construction industry.

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