More than 100 jobs to go at Severfield as group looks to cut costs
North Yorkshire-based structural steel group, Severfield, has said it will be cutting its total staff numbers by about six per cent to mitigate the effects of trading pressures the group is facing.
This would amount to more than 100 workers, as the business currently employs about 1,800 staff across seven sites.
Severfield, which issued profit warnings in November last year and in early March this year, says it will look to reduce its headcount through a combination of redundancies and non-recruitment of approved vacancies.
In a trading update for the year ended 29 March 2025, the group says it expects FY25 underlying profit before tax to be in the range of £18m – £20m, in line with its expectations.
The business adds that its UK and Europe order book remains solid and stands at £440m as of 1 April (1 February: £403m), of which £327m (1 February: £281m) is for delivery over the next 12 months.
Meanwhile, the group’s Indian order book of £210m at 1 April (1 November: £197m) is at record levels and contains a good mix of higher margin commercial work of 79 per cent (1 November: 77 per cent).
In its outlook statement, Severfield says: “While we continue to see a good pipeline of project opportunities, the market backdrop in the UK and Europe remains challenging, with pricing remaining at tighter levels for longer than expected in a competitive market and some projects not being awarded or progressing within normal timescales, all of which is consistent with the current lower level of business confidence in the UK economy as a whole.
“As such, our expectations for FY26 are unchanged from those communicated at the time of the trading update on 3 March.
“Looking further ahead, we’ve already secured some attractive large projects for FY27, and are also seeing significant future opportunities in sectors such as manufacturing (industrial), commercial offices, including the emergence of several planned large developments in London, and data centres, driven by Artificial Intelligence applications which are driving even greater dependence on data centre infrastructure.
“Our businesses also remain well positioned to win work in other markets with positive long term growth trends including those which are driving the green energy transition.”
