With all divisions back on track, the wider UK group operating margin edged up from 1% to 1.7%  on stable turnover of £913m.

This improvement helped to drive a two-thirds jump in group-wide pre-tax profit to £17m.

Vinci Construction UK chairman Jerome Stubler said its civil engineering arm, Taylow Woodrow, had experienced a volatile year for tenders with 13 of the 17 projects it bid for either deferred or cancelled.

Despite these challenges, Taylor Woodrow edged back into a £1.7m operating profit, after a loss of £13.5m in 2018, despite revenue sliding by a fifth to £165m.

The highway business had a good year with revenue growing to £80m. Going forward two-thirds of budgeted revenue for the next five years will now depend on highways and HS2 work, although Vinci remains hopeful that Network Rail projects will also come to the fore.

Stubler said the building business had increased revenue to £409m after several significant awards in the north west.

While all regional building offices also returned to profit, overall operating profit slipped back a third to £8.2m, lowering margin to 1.9%.

Vinci Facilities’ brand celebrated 10 years of trading with an uplift in operating profit to £8.2m on revenue up a fifth to £293m.