Industry should look in the mirror: Laing O’Rourke’s losses do no one any good

By Dave Rogers2023-12-01T10:01:00

A personal disaster for the UK’s biggest private contractor is also a window into where contracting seems to be right now, writes Dave Rogers

It is difficult to know where to begin with Laing O’Rourke’s latest results.

Where to start indeed? Perhaps with whether it is a legitimate question to ask the finance director of Laing O’Rourke – that’s Laing O’Rourke, the country’s biggest private contractor by some distance!! – if the firm is going to go bust.

Unfazed, because one suspects she has been asked this a few times in the past few weeks, especially by clients, Rowan Baker took the question on, answered it in a roundabout way before finishing her sentence with one word: “No.”

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