IN Brief:
- Knights Brown increased turnover to £136m, up from £116m.
- The contractor reported EBITA of £5.4m and a year-end cash position of £12.6m.
- Growth is being supported by coasts, ports, energy, water, infrastructure, and early AMP8 opportunities.
Knights Brown has reported turnover of £136m for 2025, up from £116m, after growth across coastal, port, energy, water, infrastructure, and building work.
The civil engineering and construction contractor reported a gross margin of £15m and EBITA of £5.4m, equivalent to 4%. Net assets increased by £2.1m, while the company ended the year with a cash position of £12.6m.
With around 350 directly employed staff, the business works across southern England, Wales, and the UK energy network. Its recent performance has been supported by a strategy focused on coasts and ports, energy, and water, alongside delivery in wider infrastructure and building schemes.
Knights Brown is also positioning for AMP8, the latest asset management period for the water sector. The company said it is in the early stages of securing long-term work linked to the investment cycle, which is expected to increase demand for civils capacity across water and wastewater infrastructure.
The business has reorganised around two centrally delivered sectors, water and energy, supported by coasts and ports, infrastructure, and building projects divisions operating through regional centres in the South, South East, and Wales.
That sector mix places the contractor close to parts of the market with stronger long-term visibility. Housebuilding and some commercial construction segments remain under pressure from planning delays, finance costs, demand uncertainty, and building safety requirements. Regulated utilities, coastal defence, ports, energy networks, and environmental infrastructure are driven by investment programmes that extend beyond short-term development cycles.
Water infrastructure is becoming a particularly important source of work. Utilities are facing pressure over leakage, pollution, resilience, customer bills, storm overflows, and long-term asset condition, while contractors must manage public-interface risks, environmental constraints, access challenges, and complex programme requirements.
Several recent framework moves point in the same direction. Southern Water’s £72m minor civils framework and Severn Trent’s £1.2bn tunnelling framework have both placed long-term delivery capacity around water assets firmly in the contractor pipeline.
For Knights Brown, the next stage will be converting sector focus and framework access into profitable workload without stretching delivery capacity. Recent contractor failures across the wider market have made that balance more urgent. Revenue growth needs to be matched by contract discipline, realistic pricing, supply chain control, and cash management.
The contractor’s coastal and ports work adds another line of resilience. Marine and coastal infrastructure is being shaped by climate adaptation, flood defence, port modernisation, offshore energy, and regional regeneration. These projects are technically demanding, with tides, access, environmental consents, and logistics creating barriers to entry for contractors without specialist experience.
Energy work provides a further route for growth as grid upgrades, renewable connections, storage, and industrial decarbonisation move into physical delivery. Civils contractors with experience in regulated environments and constrained sites are well placed where the energy transition requires enabling works, foundations, access infrastructure, utilities coordination, and long-term asset resilience.
Knights Brown’s results reflect a construction market that is becoming more divided. Volume remains difficult in some building sectors, while infrastructure linked to resilience, utilities, climate adaptation, and energy transition continues to generate opportunity. Mid-sized civils contractors with focused sector exposure may be better placed than businesses chasing broad workload in weaker areas.
The company’s 2025 figures show that growth remains available, but only where workload is tied to durable investment drivers. The next test will be whether the contractor can maintain margin as AMP8, energy, and marine infrastructure programmes draw more capacity into the same competitive space.
