{"id":876529,"date":"2025-10-09T23:12:52","date_gmt":"2025-10-10T04:12:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/10\/09\/contractors-must-maintain-discipline-and-resilience-as-new-era-dawns\/"},"modified":"2025-10-09T23:12:52","modified_gmt":"2025-10-10T04:12:52","slug":"contractors-must-maintain-discipline-and-resilience-as-new-era-dawns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/10\/09\/contractors-must-maintain-discipline-and-resilience-as-new-era-dawns\/","title":{"rendered":"Contractors must maintain discipline and resilience as \u2018new era\u2019 dawns"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The UK\u2019s top contractors have doubled aggregate pre-tax profits to \u00a31.92bn, according to Construction News\u2019<\/em> CN100 index \u2014 but analysts say maintaining resilience and discipline will be key to sustaining those gains.<\/p>\n

Aggregate pre-tax profits among the leading firms have nearly doubled to \u00a31.92bn<\/a>, with average margins rising above pre-pandemic levels to 2.7 per cent.<\/p>\n

Speaking on the latest episode of CN<\/em>\u2019s First Site<\/em> podcast<\/a>, Atul Kariya, head of construction and real estate at audit and business advisory firm MHA, said the sector\u2019s recovery after years of volatility was welcome.<\/p>\n

But he said that \u201cplateauing at a sustainable level may be just as beneficial as chasing growth\u201d.<\/p>\n

Max Jones, director and head of construction, infrastructure and transport at Lloyds Bank, said the improved figures stemmed from contractors being more selective, better cost control, and easing material prices.<\/p>\n

He added that \u201creally clear\u201d, simpler and more transparent business models were helping firms prepare for long-term infrastructure programmes.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we\u2019re heading into quite a long period of time where there\u2019s going to be an emphasis on resilience through multi-year [civils and infrastructure] programmes,\u201d Jones said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo I think this lens around resilience is only going to grow.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kariya said it was \u201cabsolutely key\u201d for contractors to adopt machine learning and other digital transformation tools.<\/p>\n

Jones said these would enable firms to go beyond \u201csticking to their knitting\u201d by continuing to enhance operational resilience and bear down on costs.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe return to resilience [from the latest CN100 data] should mean better delivery, more on-time delivery and the possibility that the contracting base can invest in future skills and ESG.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jones added that he had noticed a \u201cgenuine shift\u201d towards more stable civils contracts terms \u201caway from some of the fixed-price contracting risks we saw in the past\u201d, as clients recognise that excessive risk transfer hurts the entire supply chain.<\/p>\n

That change, he said, will benefit tier ones as the government\u2019s \u00a3725bn infrastructure programme<\/a> gathers pace.<\/p>\n

Jones argued that lessons have been learned under previous forms of contracting \u201cwhere there was just too much risk transfer and those weren\u2019t risks that could always be managed effectively or by the right parties\u201d.<\/p>\n

With a \u201cnew era\u201d of civils opportunities emerging, he said, contractors \u201chave become better at determining what they want to focus on and making sure they\u2019re taking risks they\u2019re comfortable with\u201d.<\/p>\n

Kariya pointed out that risks often extended beyond inflation. \u201cBehind every legacy contract\u2026 there is invariably always another risk\u2026 perhaps the contract was particularly complex, wasn\u2019t in the usual wheelhouse of that contractor,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Looking ahead, Jones said the NISTA pipeline offers clearly lucrative opportunities \u201cat the start of a golden age of infrastructure investment\u201d, but he warned of potentially rising inflation and the \u201cpredominant risks\u201d attached to cyber threats.<\/p>\n

Kariya added that \u201cgreen shoots of optimism\u201d were emerging with stronger GDP forecasts.<\/p>\n

Hear the full discussion on the First Site<\/em> podcast<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

CN Premium subscribers can access CN100 data going back to 2018 in our interactive dashboard<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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At CN Intelligence you can view and filter seven years\u2019 worth of detailed financial information on the top UK construction firms via our interactive dashboards. Access in-depth written analysis of the numbers along with targeted data and analysis on specialist contractors.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Read More<\/a>
\n Ben Vogel<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The UK\u2019s top contractors have doubled aggregate pre-tax profits to \u00a31.92bn, according to Construction News\u2019 CN100 index \u2014 but analysts say maintaining resilience and discipline will be key to sustaining those gains. Aggregate pre-tax profits among the leading firms have nearly doubled to \u00a31.92bn, with average margins rising above pre-pandemic levels to 2.7 per cent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":876530,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22553,22250],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-876529","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-contractors","8":"category-maintain"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/876529","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=876529"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/876529\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/876530"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=876529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=876529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=876529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}