The Enquirer understands the firm’s six specialist apprentices were put on redundancy notice this week.

A company statement confirmed: “Forrest has changed business model over the last 18 months and has secured a significant order book of high rise construction work.

“Whilst Forrest maintains M&E capability, the business is adopting a sub-contractor led delivery model in line with other main contractors”.

An internal email seen by the Enquirer states: “The M&E apprentices have been placed at risk of redundancy as we do not believe as a business we have the appropriate range of work available to them to complete their apprenticeship or indeed the correct level of adequate (directly employed) qualified M&E staff who can mentor them.”

Forrest has won a string of residential tower jobs since refocusing from its traditional maintenace market after racking-up losses of nearly £26m in its last two full financial years.