The contractor has lured Balfour Beatty’s former deputy finance director Haydn Murrells to replace Mattar who is one of the industry’s few female finance directors.

Mattar, 44, worked at Kier as group finance director in November 2001. She is also married to John Dodds, former Kier chief executive who retired in March this year.

The boardroom change was unveiled in an upbeat trading statement today, which said that this year’s financial performance would be in line with the upper limited of market expectations.

Kier ends the financial year with £170m in net cash against £93m at the same time last year.

The construction division has achieved 90% of targeted orders for 2011 secured as signed contracts or on a preferred bidder basis.

Kier said its exposure to BSF projects was limited and last week’s cancellation of projects would have no material impact on its order book.

On the building maintenance side, Kier is providing services to 240,000 homes, ranking it among the top five firms operating in this area.

The contractor stressed that it has not seen the problems rival Connaught recently highlighted with work being cancelled.

In fact, Kier Building Maintenance boasts a strong pipeline of work opportunities and is bidding for several major contracts including:

• Hounslow
• Warwickshire
• St Georges Housing Association
• Rotherham, Tower Hamlets
• Catalyst Housing Group
• Epping Forest
• North East Lincolnshire
• Braintree
• Lewisham

On the development side, Kier expects to start work shortly on a rail station development project in Epsom as part of the Solum Regeneration joint venture with Network Rail.

Further station related developments are expected within the next 12 months