Consultant looks to more buoyant markets and reshapes business

Turner & Townsend has redeployed about 25 staff from the UK to more buoyant markets including China and Australia as it reshapes its business to deal with a flat UK market.

Steve McGuckin, UK managing director, said that about 15 to 20 staff would also be made redundant, but that employee numbers would remain steady at about 1,100 as the consultant recruited staff to fill the gap.

“Revenue and profits will be about the same this year as last year [in the UK],” he said, but maintained that the global group was growing.

The redundancies were not specifically from one business division and were from all company levels, he said.

He said public work now accounted for about 30% of the firm’s revenue. A year ago the firm said it was a third, and aimed to make it a quarter by June 2013.