Group pre-tax profit halved to £10.2m from £20.5m in 2017 on stable revenue of £867m.

Taylor Woodrow recorded a £14.5m loss after being hit by the cost of closing out the Nottingham Tram contract and the £142m Crossrail maintenance depot at Old Oak Common in north west London.

Since 2014 the civil engineering arm has racked up cumulative losses of almost £240m.

At the building division, all regional businesses traded positively last year to nearly double pre-tax profit to £12.7m, giving a broad operating margin of  3%.

Building revenue slipped a little to £400m as it took longer to take preferred bidder schemes to site and slippage on the next phases of the New Covent Garden Market project.

Most regions have secured around 70% of 2019 workload, with the Midlands and London needing some more wins to meet targets for the building division.

Vinci’s FM arm reported a better year with profit up around 50% to £7.9m from an 8% rise in revenue to £242m.

Chairman Bruno Dupety said: “2018 was a good year for the group, with a steady level of activity and a profit rate of 1.2%.

“We enter 2019 with a growing order book now exceeding £1bn.

“We have a great team across our business and we are on track for a positive 2019.”

Voluntary staff turnover rates dropped by 3.3% from 15.5% in 2017 to 12.2% in 2018. Average staff headcount remained stable at 3,266, with near two thirds operational staff.

Retentions held by Vinci clients amounted to £21.6m, while the firm held nearly £30m in subcontractor retentions.