WS Atkins slips but UK booms

WS Atkins, the 75-year-old engineering consultant that designed Oxford Circus’s diagonal crossing, has seen annual pre-tax profits fall by nearly a quarter.

Chief executive Uwe Krueger today said the group, which also worked on a football World Cup bid for Colonel Muammar Gaddafi’s dictatorial regime in Libya, made £103.3 million off a £1.7 billion turnover.

However, the core UK business was strong, with plenty of work in the rail and water sectors.

These are two areas that are benefiting from the Government’s plans to kick-start the economy through infrastructure spending.

Turnover in Britain was up 4.7% to a shade over £900 million, while operating profit soared nearly 10% to £56.6 million. This excluded figures from the UK highways business, which is due to be sold to Skanska, the construction group that built the Gherkin, this summer for £16 million.

Elsewhere in the world, Atkins is eyeing up potential contracts in Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

However, the group’s North American business has struggled, with its Peter Brown construction management division losing £6.5 million last year.

Krueger said that the buoyant state of its UK operations was demonstrated by the need to fill 1000 vacancies.

He added that the biggest struggle was finding people with skills in the energy sector, where Atkins is looking to “cast the net wider” for global talent.