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Mace has admitted that it won鈥檛 be until next year that turnover climbs above the 拢2bn mark again after the firm said the impact of covid-19 would mean revenue would slide further this year when it files its 2020 accounts.

Such was the havoc caused by the first lockdown, announced by prime minister Boris Johnson on 23 March, that the number of people working on Mace鈥檚 sites collapsed from 62,000 in the first two months of the year to just 2,000 in April with the firm seeing revenue for that month alone fall by 拢100m.

Chief executive Mark Reynolds said it finally got back up to the 62,000 figure at the beginning of October 鈥� meaning more than five months were spent operating below 100% capacity.

Reynolds (pictured) said 2020 turnover was expected to be around 拢1.73bn, a fall from the 拢1.8bn it posted last year which itself was a 拢500m drop from the 拢2.3bn it reached in 2018. He said pre-tax profit this year would be down to around 拢20m from the 拢25m posted in 2019.

The firm is now targeting the 拢2.1bn turnover figure it had ringed this year next year and Reynolds admitted: 鈥淲e would have got there this year. January and February were great months and then lockdown happened.鈥�

Mace was forced to close its sites completely for a three week period the day after Johnson鈥檚 announcement with some sites not reopening until the middle of May.

At the height of lockdown, Mace furloughed close to 800 of its 5,500 staff in April with around 40 now left on the initiative mainly from its FM business.

But Reynolds said the firm would not be following the example of some quoted companies and be paying back the money it received from the scheme. 鈥淲e needed that. It was used to protect jobs and that鈥檚 what it did.鈥� He added that none of the firm鈥檚 shareholders would be receiving a dividend this year.

Over the summer the firm said it was looking to make up to 300 people redundant but ended up cutting 270 jobs with 140 of them coming from the UK.

A number went from the firm鈥檚 拢200m-a-year aviation business which saw work on a host of schemes across major airports including Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted come to a stop.

Reynolds said the consultancy business, which according to 2019 figures accounted for 拢313m of revenue compared to the 拢1.4bn generated by its construction arm, had weathered the covid storm better than most and had managed to increase income this year to around 拢350m.

But he warned the firm鈥檚 market in India, where it works on residential and commercial schemes, had been weakened by the severity of the lockdown in the country. 鈥淚ndia is going through a tough time. The lockdown has been tough.鈥� Around a quarter of the 270 redundancies it made earlier this year are from India.

Reynolds said industry鈥檚 response to this year鈥檚 lockdowns put it in good stead for dealing with Brexit with the UK due to finally leave the EU at the beginning of next month.

He said access to materials remained key for the wider industry and warned that firms might have to use different routes to get goods into the UK from Europe. 鈥淎void the short straights,鈥� he said. And he added firms would need to make sure materials and components being fitted into buildings would not fall foul of post-Brexit British standards.

The firm, which is one of three to have this week sent bids back for the new 拢570m HS2 station at Curzon Street in Birmingham, has 73% of next year鈥檚 workload already secured with its pipeline of work running at 拢6.5bn and stretching into 2025.