For the year ended February 2022, pre-tax profit recovered to £3m, although the business had to endure further losses from the main engineering arm.

NG Bailey’s services division recovered quickly following the impact of the pandemic with increased turnover and profitability. Collectively the underlying operating profit, excluding goodwill amortisation, was £7.1m. Turnover for the division now accounts for almost half of the overall group.

The expected longer recovery of the construction and engineering sectors, coupled with a small number of challenging contracts, resulted in the engineering division posting an operating loss of £5.1m.

Chief executive of NG Bailey, David Hurcomb, said the engineering division has embarked on a three-year business plan that will see a return to pre-pandemic levels of profitability based on a strong, visible pipeline of work.

He said that NG Bailey had maintained a strong balance sheet with net assets of £147m, including cash and investments of £79m. The group’s order book also remained healthy and consistent at £1.2bn.

“NG Bailey has made a strong recovery following the pandemic. This demonstrates the strength of our diversified business plan which is increasingly important given the challenging economic environment driven by inflationary pressures and skilled labour shortages,” added Hurcomb.

“With a high-quality order book, further opportunities for repeat income and the UK government committing to drive economic recovery through substantial investment in infrastructure and decarbonisation, we look forward with confidence to returning to pre-pandemic levels of trading in the medium-term. This is further backed by a growing pipeline of work in recession-resilient markets.”

He said the promotion of Tim Simmons as managing director of the services division and the appointment of John Kelly as managing director of the engineering division had put in place strong leadership for growth.