Last updated 16 February 2023
Arup Associates
Arup Associates is a global firm of designers, engineers, planners and business consultants, providing professional services to clients worldwide. The group’s origins date back to the foundation in Denmark in 1946 of Ove N Arup by an engineer of the same name. Since then, Arup has expanded internationally to become a multi-disciplinary consultant with work on some of the world’s most high profile schemes from Coventry Cathedral and the Sydney Opera House to the Pompidou Centre in Paris.
The company works in acoustics, economics and planning, facades, communications and IT, and project management and in other areas such indestructible flasks for transporting nuclear waste. Arup turns over more than £1.8 billion a year and employs more than 15,000 people across the world including 17 offices in the UK.
Financials
Arup has an unusual ownership structure that dates back to the ideas of its founder, Ove Arup, and the company he founded is held in trust for the benefit of its employees and their dependents.
In 2022, revenue rebounded to £1,893.8 million (2021: £1,717.1 million) but operating profits fell back to £50.9 million (2021: £68.1 million). At a pre-tax level, profits also fell, dropping to £36.7 million (2021: £54.0 million) and net assets decreased to £55.7 million (2021: £56.2 million).
To view the financials for Arup Associates, visit Companies House and use Company ID 01312454.
Operations
With an innovative ownership structure and free of pressure from external investors, Arup has been able to grow organically for more than six decades, expanding across the globe out of its native Europe into Africa and, more recently, a renewed emphasis on the Middle East and South East Asia, where the company works in eight countries and employs more than 1,000 people.
In the UK, Arup employs 6,000 people and works with clients ranging from local and county councils such as Exeter and Hampshire to major volume housebuilders including Telford to commercial developers including British Land. Arup has exposure to many sectors, notably education, and for government bodies including Homes England and Network Rail are regular clients.
Arup is working on many high profile flagship projects across the UK from the £100 million Project Ring data centre in London (Project ID: 20256209) to the £250 million Ocubis Vauxhall Towers (Project ID: 15220488).
The group also has significant experience on transport projects from parts of the High Speed Two (Project ID: 12081779) to the £258 million development of three rail stations in Leeds (Project ID: 16439147).
Glenigan Data
In the UK, Glenigan’s research shows that Arup was attached as a mechanical and engineering consultant to 41 projects that went to main contract award in 2022 (2021: 22 projects). The combined value of these projects was £1,709.8 million (2021: £718.1 million).
Conclusion: Investing for growth
Founded by a philosophically-minded Danish engineer in 1946, Arup has been well ahead of its UK peers with a mutual ownership structure that makes Arup the consulting equivalent of the John Lewis retail chain. This means that the group is more able to pursue a different strategy and makes any loss in profits in the short-term, as occurred in 2019, easier than at a conventional company.
Arup has pursued a global strategy and has an international exposure few other consultants can match and is working on projects in more than 140 countries.
The UK continues to provide the bulk of revenue in the six regions identified in the annual accounts. Arup has myriad clients across all sectors of the UK construction and property sectors. In 2022 , the group’s M&E work is on increasingly larger projects. In 2022, the average scheme that went to main contract award with Arup attached in an M&E role was valued by Glenigan at £41.7 million (2021: £32.6 million).
The UK and Americas provided more than half the income. In the UK, revenue rose to £710.4 million as the group recovered from the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic (2021: £605.0 million).
The Americas is the next largest source of income and revenue also rose, increasing to £363.3 million (2021: £351.1 million). Income also rose in Australasia to £324.6 million (2021: £290.9 million). Asian markets, including India and South East Asia, have been a major focus, and revenue rose again to £300.8 million (2021: £266.4 million).
After a fall in 2019 due to uncertainty created by Brexit, revenue in Europe continued to rebound but at a slower rate and edged up to £168.1 million (2021: £167.4 million). In the Middle East & Africa, revenue fell again, dropping to £26.6 million (2021: £36.6 million).
Arup has traditionally invested in its workforce, but the pandemic brought a retrenchment. The group received £17.5 million from the UK government’s coronavirus job retention fund, but overall the workforce was cut but with revenue rebounding recruitment has continued.
In 2022, the average number of employees rose to 15,517 (2021: 14,922) and the wage bill rose to £8020 million (2021: £761.3 million). Despite the fall in profits, cash and cash equivalents rose to £307.1 million (2021: £285.8 million).
Arup has traditionally had an operating model that eschews short-term pressure from shareholders and strong net assets but the coronavirus pandemic has clearly had some impact. However, despite these issues, the group’s global presence should enable the business to retain its position in the post-pandemic economy.
Winning Work with Arup Associates
Arup operates a sustainable procurement plan that aims to cut down waste in areas such as reduce waste, energy consumption and travel costs, and to also increase the number of small-to-medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the group’s supply chain. Arup’s SME Supplier Development Project is a key part of its Sustainable Procurement Plan, which aims to improve the firm’s environmental, social and ethical performance by responsibly purchasing goods and services.
To increase its supply base of SMEs, Arup established development plans in the main purchasing categories of recruitment services, travel, facilities and outside consultancies. This plan also included to support their sustainable development for SMEs, such as free administrative support during the start-up phase, volume commitments to help partners grow, workshops to find joint savings opportunities and free consultancy to help partners develop their own sustainability plans. This plan helped increase the number of SMEs in Arup’s supply chain by 25%.
Key Arup Associates procurement contacts
Arup Associates makes contact details available for all UK-staff that head up each of the 18 sectors that the group works in from Arts & Culture to Water on the group’s website here.
Full telephone and email contacts are also available broken down by consulting disciplines, including building design, economics and planning, infrastructure design, management consulting and specialist technical services, on the group’s website.
Associate director UKMEA – Lee Cave, tel: 0207-755-6188
Strategic partnership manager UKMEA – Andy Mathieson, tel: 0207-755-6188