Willmott Dixon generated turnover of £1.147bn for the financial year to 31 December 2022, with its construction division seeing revenues rise and its interiors division seeing revenues fall. The company said it had already secured 91% of budgeted turnover for 2023 and had a £1.6bn pipeline of orders.
In the 12-month reporting period, Willmott Dixon Construction generated turnover of £1,014m (2021: £946m) whilst Willmott Dixon Interiors saw turnover fall to £133m from £156m in 2021. The company said the fall in turnover was due to occupiers reassessing their workspace “need and style” which had led to some stalled projects.
Rick Willmott (pictured), group chief executive of Willmott Dixon, said: “Looking back at 2022, it was a complicated and difficult year where the lingering effects of Brexit and Covid were amplified by the continuing war in Ukraine and the associated disruption to energy and commodity markets. With all those features compounded by the economic fallout of prime minister Truss’ September budget and the inevitable surge in interest rates, our industry sits amidst a volatile, inflationary market and an uncertain political environment.
“The implications of the Building Safety Act (BSA) continue to be interpreted and there remains considerable uncertainty on the government’s evolving regulatory position on high-rise residential construction which will only lead to the postponement or cancellation of developments whilst the industry waits for clear and unambiguous regulation.
“Our own results for 2022 were impacted by further provisions we have made to address the implications of responding to the BSA. The aggregate provision for these legacy issues stands at a very material £62m and we naturally expect to recover a substantial portion of this from designers, fire engineers, supply chain and insurers who, so far, have not faced up to their responsibilities or obligations across those ‘in scope’ projects.
“However, despite these evident headwinds, we have skilled teams across the country dedicated to collaboratively aligning project costs with customers’ budgets through our early involvement and ever closer relations with our supply chain partners and designers. This effort is translating into a resilient order book which remains in line with our budget expectations for this year. Importantly for all, we are beginning to notice early signs of inflation subsiding, which is an important turning point for customer confidence and project affordability.”
