Balfour Beatty Engineering Services boss John Moore will move on to head up Britain’s biggest contractor’s rail business at the end of the month.

He takes over from Manfred Ledger as chief executive officer of Balfour Beatty Rail, and joins the executive board at Balfour Beatty.

BBES finance director Alan Scott will stand in until a new managing director is found.

Moore leaves the building services business as it faces a last ditch strike ballot of members of union Unite over plans to introduce the Building Engineering Services National Agreement at the firm.

Unite sent out ballot papers seeking industrial action last week despite new evidence that the vast majority of M&E staff have signed BESNA contracts.

A source told the Enquirer that Moore would continue to advise BBES over the implementation of BESNA in the run up to the agreement coming into force in April.