Severfield said that in its first-half to the end of September revenue was up 40% to £186m delivering a pretax profit of £6.6m, down from £8.2m in 2019.

Alan Dunsmore, Chief Executive Officer, said that tendering and pipeline activity remained very encouraging despite more competitive pricing and some client investment decisions taking longer than normal.

Its UK and Europe order book stands £287m, ahead from (1 June 2020: £271m) helped by new nuclear orders secured by its recently acquired Harry Peers business.

He said orders and inquiries remained strong in the industrial and distribution, nuclear, data centre, infrastructure and stadia and leisure sectors.

“The resilience provided by our market sector, geographical and client diversity, together with the actions that we have taken to date have enabled us to navigate well through the challenging conditions of COVID-19, said Dunsmore.

“This has resulted in a strong operational performance in the first half of the year.

“We have a strong balance sheet, good visibility of future earnings from our order books and pipelines, and a strong reputation for delivery of complex projects for our long-standing clients.”

“There is now greater clarity of the extent of the impact of COVID-19 on the current year’s performance and, on the assumption of no further significant business interruptions arising from any widespread and prolonged secondary lockdown, we expect to improve upon our first half profitability in the second half of the financial year.”