Its Carillion telent (60:40) joint venture will provide civil engineering, cabling, poling and other infrastructure services for the broadband extension programme over the next three and a half years.

In a trading update for the final quarter, the firm said it had lost around £1.7bn from the order book due to the impact of selling stakes in PPP projects and revising down expectations from Green Deal and Energy Company Obligation contracts.

This was compensated by the £17.5m acquisition of the FM business John Laing Integrated Services and several big orders in recent months.

These include preferred bidder to deliver the £800m Airport City project in Manchester, worth up to £580m to Carillion.

Carillion also took £200m of highways work, and signed a £100m energy efficiency services contract for West Sussex County Council as well as bagging rail infrastructure services contracts worth £60m.

Despite a strong pipeline Carillion said it expects full-year revenue at construction services to be lower than last year, due to the fallout from rescaling its UK business.

It also warned operating margins for 2013 would be lower, even after being extremely selective about the contracts it took on.

Net debt began to reduce benefitting from improved working capital in the second half, as cash from UK construction activities stablised after downsizing the business for the smaller market