According to the administrators there will also be insufficient funds to pay suppliers owed around £2.5m.

The firm went down following a payment row with Bam at a job for Aston University.

Former commercial director Patrick O’Donnell said: “If we had been paid the company would not have had to go into administration.

“The money owed to the workers is for redundancy and notice – that wouldn’t have been an issue if we were still trading.

“We were in business for 22 years and always looked after our staff and have done everything we can to help them after this situation was forced upon us.”

The Birmingham concrete contractor had been profitable for many years, but made a net loss of £750,000 in just three months to end of January.

Most of the 177-strong workforce was made redundant on the appointment of administrators PKF in March.

PKF said it expected to be able to pay one week’s wages to the workers but warned there would not be enough in the pot to pay claims for £846,000 in lieu of notice and redundancy, as well as wages above the statutory limit.

Bam Construction took on 77 of the workforce to finish its big Aston University concrete frame contract for student buildings.

Main contractor Bam had made several counter claims on the job, but the administrator decided to continue to supply the Aston project with moulds and scaffolding to make a trading profit of £101,000.

Administrators also sold three other O’Donnell contracts for £175,000 to Birmingham business DSM Demolition.