Halifax-based Elland Steel employs over 100 staff who will now be beneficiaries of the Trust, which owns the £19m revenue business.

Elland joins an emerging movement of contractors switching to EOTs, such as demolition contractors McGee and Clifford Devlin, groundworks firms Fitfield and Falco and Triton Construction.

The existing senior management team will remain unchanged and business relationships and operations with supply-chain partners will be unaffected.

Since being founded in 1973, the majority of shares have been held by the Denham family.

Mark Denham, currently managing director and chairman, along with the other family shareholders, wanted to secure the long-term future of the business while avoiding a messy trade sale or external investment.

Denham said: “It was very important to my Father and I that when the time came to sell the company that it was left in safe hands.

“Becoming an EOT means everyone has more input into how the business is being managed and with the benefits of an EOT we see it as a win-win for everyone involved.”