Accelerating
our ambition
This past year has been an exceptional one for our business, which continues to grow at a pace despite market volatility around the world. Our strong client partnerships and distinctive capability continue to set us apart, enabling us to respond to market demand and deliver some of the world’s most impactful projects and programmes.
2023–2024 saw us deliver against our strategy for long-term growth with investment in our global footprint, sector capability and talent, leading to us securing several landmark major programme wins. As a result, we ended the financial year to April 2024 with net revenue increasing by 21.5 percent to reach £1.3bn.
Since joining forces with CBRE in 2021, our ambition has been to create an unrivalled programme, project and cost management capability globally. We have greater firepower to invest in our proposition, technology platform and talent, which has allowed us to develop more impactful solutions for the world’s biggest programmes.
Most recently, in June 2024, we announced our plan to combine CBRE’s project management business with Turner & Townsend to create a programme, project and cost management offering that is unrivalled for its scale and breadth of capabilities, with more than 20,000 employees globally. This means we can better capitalise on powerful secular trends, such as the step change in investment in advanced manufacturing, the rebuilding of critical infrastructure and the transition to clean energy.
Transforming together
I believe the benefits of building strong client partnerships along with our global capability means we can help make a positive impact for the future. Our ability to pivot and mobilise our talent to where the biggest global challenges and opportunities exist provides us with the ability to have real impact while making our business more resilient to market volatility.
This year, our global workforce reached over 12,000 people and we saw revenue growth across all our regions, with particularly strong performance in the Americas and Europe. Our early careers programmes are industry-leading and provide the foundations to help create an inclusive industry that embraces modernisation and change and reflects the societies in which we operate.
Growth across key sectors
Our business once again saw growth across our three key segments during 2023–2024. In real estate, our revenue increased by 25 percent. The industrial science and technology sector continues to see rapid growth, responding in particular to rising advanced manufacturing demand, with a number of multibillion-pound battery programmes underway around the world. Data centre demand also continues to increase as the world prepares to embrace the power of AI.
Investment in city regeneration and in tall buildings remained a focus for many nations this year. This has been exemplified in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, where we have been involved in several significant giga projects which are redefining how local communities work, play and live. The government sector across the world has been significantly bolstered by strong public spending in recent years in sectors such as education and healthcare. We have particularly seen strong growth in North America on the back of our investment in Heery.
Our infrastructure business experienced strong demand across all regions, driving revenue up by 13 percent. Investment, particularly in the aviation and defence sectors, has driven that growth, including our work on Zayed International Airport in Abu Dhabi, Manchester Airport in the UK and Toronto Pearson Airport in Canada. In defence, we were appointed as joint project delivery partner for the UK’s Ministry of Defence’s framework in early 2024.
Challenges to global energy security and the need to meet net-zero targets have continued to propel investment in renewable energy. Our energy and natural resources business saw global growth of 24 percent over the past 12 months, with partnering roles on major projects across Europe for clients such as TenneT, the transmission system operator.
In 2024, we announced a strategic partnership with JUMBO Consulting Group, a global leader in procurement and contract management for offshore wind. Through this, we will establish an industry-leading offering to deliver the offshore wind programmes needed to support the energy transition.
This year, we also announced the acquisition of OTM (ON THE MARK), a specialist consultancy in collaborative operating model modernisation across the US and the UK. This partnership further strengthens our major programmes expertise across defence, infrastructure, real estate, energy and natural resources.
Delivering on our responsibility
We are determined to take the bold, transformative steps needed to build a more inclusive, equitable and sustainable world. Aligning to those responsibilities is our unwavering commitment to inclusion, which as a company is fundamental to who we are and how we operate. This year, we have also put a strong focus on standardising our own sustainable procurement practices and developing our supplier diversity programme and tendering processes.
Our talented people are at the centre of our success and supporting them in every way we can is essential to bring out the best in everyone. Our employee development programme, ‘Licence to Lead’, is helping build our future leaders to embrace inclusivity and diversity. This year, I am pleased that more than a third of our managers globally have completed the programme so far.
We have made great strides to further grow our positive impact on local communities. Our ‘Making the Difference Fund’ supports causes that align with our business ethos. In 2023, we began a three-year partnership with Barefoot College International. In 2024, that collaboration resulted in the first female graduates from remote rural communities in Guatemala and Senegal completing their training as solar engineers, empowering them to assist their communities and improve their lives.
During 2023–2024, we raised £1.2m through corporate and employee donations and delivered over 21,000 hours of volunteering to support initiatives in local communities.
The possibilities of partnership
We live in an increasingly complex and connected world. The next decade is when our industry needs to reinvent itself to cope with the extent of demand, clients’ ever-changing needs and advances in technology.
While we navigate these challenges, I have never been more optimistic that through our strong partnerships, our diverse and resilient business model and our talented teams around the world, we are uniquely placed to deliver the solutions our clients need, and to make both industry-wide and world-wide changes together.
As we continue to work with like-minded clients and partners globally, I look forward to the possibilities next year will bring.
