The country’s leading M&E contractors saw revenue rise by nearly a fifth last year driven mainly by cost inflation.

But major firms are predicting a stronger year ahead as data centre work, commercial retrofits, life sciences and lab work starts to fire-up the sector.

The industry’s biggest players are also taking on major contract roles on data centre work as £100m-plus M&E packages hit the market.

During last year, Dalkia leap-frogged NG Bailey to become the industry’s biggest player after a rebrand that consolidated Imtech, Inviron and SPIE UK brands.

Wates-owned SES, Skanska’s SRW and Gratte Brothers enjoyed strong sales growth lifting the firms up the rankings now to sit just below the big three.

Ranking
M&E specialist
Turnover £

2023
2022
2023
2022

1
2
Dalkia
601m
427m

2
1
NG Bailey
532m
500m

3
3
T Clarke
491m
425m

4
10
SES Engineering Services
299m
173m

5
8
SRW
267m
209m

6
14
Gratte Brothers
250m
125m

7
4
Crown House
238m
269m

8
7
Vital Energi
220m
227m

9
6
Briggs & Forrester
212m
234m

10
11
Dodd Group
207m
167m

11
12
Phoenix
170m
160m

12
19
Essex Services Group
167m
114m

13
24
HE Simm
116m
66m

14
15
Ark Mechanical & Electrical Services
112m
115m

15
23
JCA Engineering
105m
72m

16
17
Mace MEP
82m
69m

17
16
Dornan Engineering
78m
45m

18
22
Borough Engineering
78m
72m

19
NEW
PIP
68m
36m

20
27
LJJ
63m
64m

21
29
Designer Group
62m
58m

22
21
Derry Building Services
60m
78m

23
NEW
Stothers M&E
59m
49m

24
20
King & Moffatt UK
58m
79m

25
NEW
J & B Hopkins
55m
46m

26
26
CMB Engineering
54m
64m

27
NEW
Price Building Services
52m
49m

28
NEW
MCS
51m
21m

29
NEW
Bancroft
50m
57m

30
30
Swiftline Engineering
49m
57m

Total revenue
4,905m
4,128m

(The Top 30 is compiled for trade body BESA by Gokhan Hassan, Managing Director at Chartered QS practice, GHCS)

Last year’s challenging business environment of inflation, shortage of workers, project delays and supply chain disruptions saw Michael J Lonsdale become the sector’s highest-profile casualty.

Other firms going under included London’s Haydon ME, York’s JDL Electrical, Plumbing & Heating and Bradford-based H Mitton and Newcastle’s
Norstead.

The top 30 firms saw a record six newcomers last year with four operating in London and south east.