The wafer-thin margins were blamed on a number of problem jobs including the Nova scheme in Victoria which finished late and over budget.

Pre-tax profits were down 70% from £36.2m last time despite a rise in turnover to £1.97bn from £1.73bn.

Executive chairman Stephen Pycroft said: “It is fair to say last year was a challenging one for us.

“A small number of our projects were, for a variety of reasons, harder to deliver than first envisaged.”

He added: “Such unprecedented growth brings with it certain challenges in terms of delivery, not to mention the impact of the industry-wide issues we predicted in last year’s annual report and additional issues such as high risk projects, incomplete designs and a reliance on the performance of our construction partners.

“2016 has taught us some very valuable lessons and as a result, we have put in place additional measures to prevent these problems happening again.”

Profits in the UK and Europe plummeted to £3.9m from nearly £26m in 2015, with the Middle East now the most profitable region for Mace contributing £5.7m, down from £7.6m

Chief executive Mark Reynolds said a “stronger bidding process” has been introduced alongside “more regular and intensive project risk reviews.”

Construction continued to make up the major share of turnover accounting for £1.67bn of revenue.

Directors’ pay increased despite the profit fall with total awards up to £1.3m from £1.2m last time.