Accounts filed for Gateshead-based Meldrum Construction Services show 2024 to have been a year of consolidation for the employee-owned contractor.
Turnover stayed flat at £54.3m (2023: £54.9m) but strong margins saw operating profit jump from £1.9m to £2.4m, while overall profit for the year was £1.86m, up from £1.59m.
“The Meldrum group of companies performed strongly again during 2024, representing the year of consolidation and preparation for the next phase of growth that we had planned, “ said founder and chief executive Dave Meldrum.
Meldrum is headquartered in Gateshead and has offices in Cambridge and Teesside. Its divisions offer construction, civil engineering, facilities management and building services. It also has a new fire engineering business. Ownership transitioned to an employee owned trust last year.
In the accounts report, Dave Meldrum writes: “Detailed business plans and a continued recruitment strategy allowed us to prepare for an anticipated increase in volume through the latter half of 2025 and well into 2026. This anticipated increase has already been seen to be turning into a reality with the group securing several contracts and signing up to a number of large value PCSAs (pre-construction services agreements) guaranteeing the predicted growth through to the end of 2026.
“At the same time, business development initiatives continue to provide positive results with the growth in our pipeline of opportunities to £500m, and circa £120m in value for projects which are down to final stage negotiations alone.
“2024 had challenges across the whole construction industry, skilled labour shortages continued across several disciplines, which continued to place inflationary demands on wages as companies competed for a smaller pool of available candidates.
“The group continued working on initiatives to focus further on staff training and development, flexibility, and welfare as well as enhanced remuneration packages to aid with both retention and recruitment.
“Continued success in this area has been proven, with staff numbers being maintained above the 220 number, and for 2025 we look forward to a year with a stable and motivated workforce.”
Looking ahead, Meldrum warned that “with the change of government in the year have become evident which has led to a noticeable ‘slow down’ in decision making due to uncertainty on policy going forward and the tightening of spend across any projects requiring local or national authority support”.
After the accounts were published, he added: “2024 was largely in line with what we anticipated, despite economic challenges. Although turnover remained relatively flat, we increased the profitability of gross margin to 15.1%. Driving efficiency and performance as well as succession planning, were a key focus for 2024 and remain so for 2025 as we look to build strong foundations for the new era of the employee-owned trust. The performance allows us to maintain and improve our investment within the business as we continue our focus on sustainable growth.”
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