All articles by Martin Hewes
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FeaturesTop Specialists 2010
Britain鈥檚 top subcontractors are having to adapt to survive - and faster than the first crustaceans. David Rogers looks at the strategies they鈥檙e adopting (going backwards isn鈥檛 one of them), while Martin Hewes ranks them by turnover and specialisation
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NewsConfusion over public spending cuts
Figures for a cut in net investment are causing alarm, but its the gross investment construction needs to worry about
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Comment
The confusion over public sector spending cuts
There has been much comment recently concerning the planned cuts in public sector investment, with a figure of 50% often mentioned. This relates to the planned reduction in public sector NET investment over the period 2009/10 鈥� 2012/13.However, GROSS investment is planned to fall by a lesser 30% over this ...
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FeaturesTop 250 Consultants 2009: 'As bad as it gets'
That was one consultant鈥檚 view of the year when new orders fell 25% and 20,000 QSs, engineers, architects and surveyors received P45s. Roxane McMeeken looks at what went wrong, and what hope there is for the year to come, while Martin Hewes presents this year鈥檚 tables
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FeaturesSpecialists vs the downturn: the UK's top subcontractors
For the first time ever, we have a list of Britain鈥檚 top subcontractors, ranked by turnover and specialisation. Roxane McMeeken finds out how they鈥檙e tackling the downturn.
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FeaturesTop 250 Consultants 2008: How to survive the downturn
You don鈥檛 have to be Charles Darwin to know that survival is about adapting to your circumstances better than your rivals. Roxane McMeeken looks at how firms have changed their strategies since our last consultants survey, when the market was booming
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FeaturesTop 250 Consultants 2006: And they鈥檙e off!
Fasten your earmuffs 鈥� speed demons, classic saloons, green racers, nimble runarounds and hardy 4脳4s are all on the starting grid for this year鈥檚 Top 250 consultants survey. Martin Hewes compiles the results and Katie Puckett does the commentary
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Features
Where the smart money is
The second issue of the 50 Top Clients review brings together key information on the UK construction industry's major clients 鈥� those firms that invest large sums on a regular basis
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Features
Top 200 Consultants
Welcome to this year's league tables of architects, surveyors and engineers. Once again, numbers have swelled: the 200 companies on our list have 120,000 staff between them – that's 11% more than last year. A 13% rise in engineering employees across the board reflects growth spurts in the engineering-based consultancies ...
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Features
Top bananas
Welcome to 黑洞社区's annual league tables of the top 100 contractors and housebuilders in the UK.
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Features
Contractors and housebuilders by remuneration of highest paid director
Whereas staffers saw their pay rise 6.2% on average last year, the bosses enjoyed 15.7% increases. Top of the rich list and way ahead of the competition was Bowmer & Kirkland's highest-paid director, who took home 拢1.6m, including bonus. Housebuilding bosses got some of the biggest rises. Prowting's highest-earning director ...
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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 拢4.2m on a slightly reduced turnover of 拢370m. The company actually paid its staff less than it did in 1998, but ...
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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 拢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 拢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 拢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 黑洞社区'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.