The turnaround was helped by previous management cost-cutting and more complex higher margin jobs, although overall steel output fell to 13,000 tonnes.

Chief executive Steve Fareham said that Billington Structures has started 2014 with its strongest order book for five years.

But pretax profit was below expectations at £720,000 after a £455,000 loss on the previous year from static sales of £38m.

This was mainly down to its Peter Marshall steel stairs business, were there were further management changes due to underperformance.

At the start of the year Henderson Global Investors bought 1m shares (7.73%) in the steelwork firm.

Fareham said that the group was now focused on investment and growth after several years of cost-cutting and management changes.

To further strengthen the management team he is now looking to recruit a group chief operating officer and a technical director for Billington Structures.

“The improvement in Billington’s financial performance in 2013 is testament to the extensive efforts that have been made restructuring all group operations,” said Fareham

“We have established an appropriate platform from which to serve our customers, while ensuring that we have sufficient capacity and capabilities to exploit growth opportunities as our markets continue to recover.”

Projects secured so far this year include ISG’s major exhibition hall in Liverpool, several energy from waste projects around the country and retail projects in Cornwall, Rotherham and Liverpool.

It also has picked up a large data centre in the South of England.