Overseas and national projects drive growth
THE boss of multi-disciplinary engineering and design consultancy Cundall says work at home and abroad will drive further growth this year.
Carole O’Neil, who leads the global firm from its Newcastle headquarters, says success in South East Asia, recent North East stimulus within the UK Budget and activity in the health and life sciences market means 2024 is shaping up to be a positive year.
Ms O’Neil singled out the success of Cundall’s Manila office, which was launched a year ago and is supporting work across data centres and commercial property in South East Asia.
The 1,000-plus strong firm has followed talent across the world, with the new Philippines outpost proving to be well-positioned for attracting high-quality engineers in contrast to the UK, where Ms O’Neil says it has been more challenging to hire skills in the face of Brexit and more recent immigration regime changes.
But on home soil, Cundall is working on a range of high-profile regeneration schemes including the HMRC complex at Newcastle’s Pilgrim’s Quarter and the redevelopment Sunderland Riverside including the former Vaux site.
Ms O’Neil’s comments follow recent reporting of double-digit turnover and profit growth across the business in 2023, with turnover topping £95m. She said: “Overall, things are still looking pretty positive. We’re still getting really good levels of enquiries everywhere – in Newcastle and further afield.
“Being multi-disciplinary, having the full service offering across the range of different engineering disciplines helps, because we’ve got lots of different ways in to interesting projects.
“Obviously we’ve been around for quite a long time – we’re coming up to 50 years before too much longer – which means we’ve got some really good relationships with longstanding clients in the North East and further afield.”
On the current market she added: “I think we did see a little bit of lack of confidence in the marketplace towards the end of last calendar year with decision making perhaps being a little bit slower than it had been in the past – but not to the extent that we were concerned. Certainly since Christmas the signs are positive, there’s a lot going on and there was the recent Budget with announcement of significant investment for the North East.”
A strategy to grow globally – launched more than 20 years ago and resulting in 26 offices across the world – is said to have helped Cundall become resilient against fluctuations in distinct markets.
The North East continues to be a focal point for the firm, evidenced by it bringing together its global leadership team to Tyneside in May to talk about its ambitious plans to make all of its projects net zero carbon by the end of the decade.