Rok named as one of Sunday Times' 100 best employers

Among them were contractor ROK, which came in at 71, consultant Davis Langdon at 81, and engineer Arup at 74.

The Lindum Group, a construction and housebuilding services firm in Lincoln, fared best, ranking sixth overall. It has 496 staff, most of whom own shares in the firm.

The survey, the sixth, looked at 522 companies and covered eight areas of concern. They were:

• How employees felt about the head of the company and the rest of the senior management;
• The level of work-life balance encouraged at the company;
• How people felt about their immediate boss;
• Staff attitude towards their colleagues;
• How staff felt about pay and benefits offered by the company;
• How much staff felt their company contributed to wider society and the local community;
• How staff felt about the company, as opposed to the people with whom they worked;
• To what extent people felt they were challenged by their jobs.

In a separate survey The Sunday Times named engineering and design consultant Atkins 11th in the 20 best big companies to work for. It scored particularly highly in one section where employees were asked if they were made to feel valued and rewarded by the firm. Atkins staff also felt managers cared how satisfied they were.