The engineering services arm, which is the largest division within the group, has now been streamlined with operations rationalised from four to two regions – South East and Western  – to bring significant overhead savings.

Across the Northamptonshire-based group revenue for the year remained stable at £229m.

Group financial director Jeremy Askew said: “It has been a particularly difficult year with high levels of inflation experienced impacting on the profitability of some fixed price contracts.

“We also experienced some significant project delays where we were not able to recover all our staff costs.

“We now have inflationary protection measures in place for most projects secured during the past year and are starting to see inflation in our market ease along with a reduction in project delays.”

These pressures saw net cash fall from £19m a year before to £7m at 31 October 2022.

Briggs & Forrester’s order book at year-end was up nearly 9% at £291m driven by engineering services, special projects and Building Services maintenance.

But the specialist residential arm Living found market conditions more challenging, particularly for large residential schemes in London and reduced its cost base.

Average headcount across the group slipped back 2.5% to 874 staff.

Since becoming an employee ownership trust two years ago, a growth share allocation was distributed in January 2021 with a further allocation due to be made next month.