Clarkson joins from the engineering giant’s £200m Clean Energy Europe Business division and was previously finance director of AMEC’s nuclear business.

He replaces Sean Cummins who announced he was stepping down earlier this year for personal reasons.

Clarkson joins as WYG reported record orders and plans to step up recruitment for growing UK workload.

The firm this morning reported a 24% rise in adjusted pre-tax profits up 54% to £2.2m on flat revenue of £133.5m.

Paul Hamer, chief executive, said the outlook for the UK business is very positive with the order book up by 50% to £79.5m, reflecting buoyant infrastructure and planning markets.

He added that the firm would be largely unaffected by a posible Brexit vote because of its trading businesses in Poland, Turkey and Croatia bid for the majority of WYG’s European work.

Hamer said: “I am pleased to report on another successful year for WYG in which we have seen continued strong profit growth and a very significant increase in our order book despite the first half of the year being held back by the EU budget hiatus.

“Having had a very strong finish to the year, we are seeing buoyant conditions across all three of our regions driving continued strong momentum into the new financial year.

“With all regions also showing very substantial order book growth, WYG’s total order book at the year end was £150m, an all-time high for the group.

“This gives us excellent forward visibility underpinning our confidence that the Group can deliver the further significant growth forecast for the current year.”