Directors are presently in talks with potential investors ahead of the share placing for the £80m turnover business, which operates out of seven offices.

The Nottingham-based firm plans to float on the AIM market, but has not disclose how much it aims to raise.

The firm is following in the tracks of contractors Lakehouse and Watkin Jones, which both successfully floated in the last 18 months.

Van Elle is led by co-founder and chairman Michael Ellis and chief executive Jonathan Fenton, who have driven an ambitious expansion programme in recent years taking staff numbers up to 520. Last month it opened it first office in Scotland at Blantyre outside Glasgow.

The contractor has cashed in on orders from the rising housing market and a focus on rail work to more than double pre-tax profits to £7.2m in the year to April 2015. In 2013, revenue stood at £35m and this year the figure is expected to be close to £85m

This has seen it leapfrog Balfour Beatty Ground Engineering with sales of £71m and Cementation Skanska with £45m turnover.

Vinci-owned Bachy Soletanche remains market leader turning over £87m, with Roger Bullivant, now also part of the Vinci group, separately achieving £73.5m in sales.

A spokesman for the firm said: “At present I can only confirm there are plans to float before the end of the month.”

The firms’s stock market debut is being led by the Manchester corporate finance community, with Rickitt Mitchell acting as lead advisers, alongside Eversheds and Deloitte offices in the city.