Consultant says UK remains biggest source of business

Turnover at Arup went up 10% last year to £1.9bn but the 15,500-strong business saw its pre-tax profit cut by a third to £37m, the firm’s latest report and accounts reveal.

The company, which is working on designs for the new HS2 station at Eustion, said the impact of the pandemic and the war in Ukraine had blunted its bottom line for the year to March 2022.

It said it did not have any offices in Russia and pulled out of the jobs it was working on in the country once the invasion began 11 months ago.

euston

Arup is part of the design team working on plans for a new HS2 station at Euston

Its biggest business remains the UK with £710m of income, a rise of 17%, with workloads in all other regions heading north – although revenue from the Middle East and Africa was down 27% to £27m.

Staff numbers recovered to just over 15,500 from 14,900 with the firm having shelled out £28m on redundancy costs in the previous year.

It said it employs a further 610 people through a subsidiary working on schemes for the government.

The firm said it booked a £15.7m profit on the sale of its stake in the MailManager email business it set up and received a further £2.4m on the sale of its control in subsidiary air conditioning firm Artus Air.

Arup also completed the sale of leasehold land for £3.1m in August last year, after the year-end.

Its business in Singapore was handed £1.9m in covid-19 grants during the period, the accounts added.

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