IN Brief:
- Billington has secured two data-centre structural steel contracts worth around £42m with new clients.
- The first starts in Q4 2026, while the second begins in Q1 2027 and continues into 2028.
- The awards extend Billington’s move towards larger contracts following the restructuring of its steel operations.
Billington Holdings has secured two data-centre contracts with a combined expected value of around £42m, extending the structural steel group’s workload in a sector it has identified as a source of future growth. Both awards are with new clients.
The first contract covers the initial phase of a substantially larger development. Billington expects to start work during the fourth quarter of 2026, with the bulk of delivery taking place in the first half of 2027. The second project is scheduled to begin in the first quarter of 2027 and continue into 2028, creating a multi-year programme of data-centre steelwork.
Billington has not disclosed the clients, project locations or the division of the £42m value between the two contracts. The awards nevertheless add to a series of larger projects secured during 2026 as the company shifts its workload towards fewer, higher-value structural steel packages.
In April, Billington announced around £50m of new work spanning carbon capture, education, rail-related heritage construction, semiconductor manufacturing and a London data centre. That package included projects running through 2027 and followed a year in which the group had reported strong secured productive hours despite weaker financial results. The latest £42m announcement adds another substantial block of contracted data-centre work.
Billington entered 2026 after a difficult operational year. Revenue fell 15.4% to £95.7m, while reported pre-tax profit dropped to £1.3m from £10.8m in 2024. Underlying pre-tax profit was £4.1m, with the statutory result affected by £2.8m of costs associated with the closure of the group’s Yate facility and consolidation of structural steel operations at Barnsley.
The restructuring reduced year-end employee numbers to 449, although Billington expected headcount to increase during 2026 as night-shift capacity expanded at its Barnsley facilities. The group ended 2025 with £20.5m in cash and an unused £6m revolving credit facility, leaving it debt-free while production capacity was reorganised around a changing mix of projects.
The operating backdrop was set out in Billington’s 2025 results, when the group cited client-led delays, competitive pricing and the Yate closure among the pressures on performance. At the same time, it identified data centres and power-related work as areas where structural steel demand was expected to expand during 2026 and 2027.
Large data centres require substantial primary steel frames, secondary steelwork and carefully sequenced delivery around dense mechanical and electrical packages. Fabrication capacity has to align with engineering coordination and site erection, while programmes are often heavily dependent on the release of design information and interfaces with envelope, plant and fit-out contractors.
The move towards larger contracts also makes programme timing more influential on Billington’s financial performance. Its annual report noted that a smaller number of sizeable projects means changes to delivery schedules and profit recognition can have a greater effect on results within individual reporting periods. The two new contracts span late 2026 through 2028, increasing forward visibility while concentrating more workload into major schemes.
Earlier 2026 awards show the wider portfolio supporting that transition. Alongside a London data centre, Billington secured work on a carbon capture facility in northern England, a school in Sheffield, a steel bridge, the National Railway Museum and a silicon-chip manufacturing facility in Bristol. The mix places the group across several capital-intensive markets where structural steel remains a core construction package.
Chief executive Mark Smith said the two latest contracts demonstrated Billington’s position in the data-centre sector and highlighted that both customers are new to the group. The company is due to provide a fuller trading update with its interim results for the six months ended 30 June 2026 on 29 September.
Those results will provide the next indication of how the restructuring and stronger order book are feeding through to output and margins. The latest awards already give Billington substantial secured work through 2027 and into 2028, with data centres occupying a larger position in the group’s post-Yate workload.
