Leo Martin will join in January as chief operating officer for infrastructure after more than 25 years at Graham, where he helped steer its civil business through major growth across the UK and Ireland.

He will report directly to group chief executive Paul Brown.

Sisk has created the new division to give dedicated executive focus to its expanding civil engineering workload. It brings together Sisk Infrastructure and the recently acquired Farrans business under one leadership team.

Alan Rodger and Dominic Lavery will continue to run Sisk Infrastructure and Farrans respectively, both reporting to Martin.

Brown said: “We are delighted to welcome Leo in the new year and to learn from his experience in the civil engineering sector across Ireland and the UK as we look to grow our business in this space.

“Leo is incredibly well known and respected throughout the industry, and we look forward to welcoming him on board in the new year.”

He added: “With the recent addition of Farrans to the Sisk family, the scale and capability of our infrastructure operations has increased considerably.

“Combined with our existing Sisk Infrastructure business led by Alan Rodger, we now have a powerful platform for growth across both markets.”