Shed Builder Readie Revenue Tops £400m -

Essex-based warehouse specialist Readie Construction has doubled in size since the owners sold to an employee-owned trust over two years ago.

The firm saw revenue jump 22% to £421m in the year to March 2023.

Its expansion saw the business take on around 40 extra staff lifting head count to 260 staff.

This compares with a business that employed 160 staff generating £180m turnover when the firm was sold to an EOT in March 2021.

But a combination of supply chain failures, cost inflation and more clients switching to competitive tenders from negotiated work saw margins come under pressure, falling to 0.4% from 1.6% in the prior year.

As a result pre-tax profit fell to £1.7m from £5.5m.

During the year, Readie worked on 41 projects and achieved 22 completions with a total of 3.8m sq ft of warehouse space delivered to clients.

In total 8.3m sq ft of industrial, logistics and retail space were worked on in the year with most due for completion within the year ending March 2024.

Jessica McCarthy, finance director, said the firm was targeting reduced turnover this year.

“We have secured £200m of the £350m revenue targetted for the year ending March 2024.”

She added: “There remains a very strong potential for us to further grow market share in the sector.

“In addition, the size of the industrial logistics sector in which we are a true specialist continues to increase in size.”