Galliford Try, the house building and contracting group, has awarded its 4000 staff their first pay rise in three years, said the head of construction Ken Gillespie.
Speaking to CM, Gillespie said that the company was one of the first to impose a pay freeze and pay cuts for directors, but that the firm wanted to invest and motivate the team and had given the pay rise in July this year.
Pay freezes have been wide spread across the sector and other contractors will be watching with interest as they draw up budgets for next year, in the coming weeks.
Galliford Try results this week showed overall revenue was up 5% to £1.28bn, with pre-tax profit up by a third to £35m. The firm also said its construction margins had remained at 2.4% despite the tough trade conditions.
Looking ahead Gillespie said that the firm was in pretty good shape, with future order books of £1.7 billion, which included 90% of current year’s planned and 50 % for the year after. But he warned that for contracting as a whole, “things were likely to get worse before they got better”
“The private sector has been slow to recover to compensate for cuts in the public sector – and it’s inevitable in the current market place working volumes and margins will deteriorate going forward.”
Gillespie said he expected new opportunities to come in developing waste energy plants, renewables, and the green agenda generally.
The firm announced continued progress in its plan to double the size of its house building business over three years, reporting completions up 27% to 2,170 and an operating profit margin up to 8.1%. Greg Fitzgerald, chief executive, said: “We enter the final year of our three-year transformational expansion plan for house building in a strong position to deliver on the objectives we set.”
