A London-headquartered infrastructure group, founded in 1909, that builds and maintains roads, railways, power networks, hospitals and schools across the UK.
Balfour Beatty is one of Britain's best-known builders of infrastructure, the roads, railways, tunnels, bridges and power networks that people use every day. Its own description is that it looks after the whole life of an asset: paying for it, designing it, managing the project, building it, and then operating and maintaining it. It reports its work in three parts: construction services in the UK, the US and Hong Kong; support services such as maintaining power, water, road and rail networks; and long-term investments in public buildings and roads. Recent and current UK projects include work on Hinkley Point C, HS2 and the Old Oak Common station site.
The company began on 12 January 1909, founded by George Balfour, an electrical and mechanical engineer, and Andrew Beatty, an accountant, who had met while working at a firm in London. Its first contract was a tramway in Dunfermline. Over the following century it built power schemes, railways, the Churchill Barriers in Orkney, the Docklands Light Railway, large parts of the M25, work on the Channel Tunnel, the Cardiff Bay Barrage and the London Aquatics Centre for the 2012 Olympics. Its present name dates from 2000.
Balfour Beatty describes itself as being at the "beating heart of society" and says it aims to "breathe new life into the places where you live, work and play". It also says it is committed to working safely and sustainably wherever it operates, and that shared values and the dedication of its staff are the basis of the trust that customers place in it. Those are the company's own words, taken from a student-recruitment profile rather than a formal values page, so we have not tried to list its values one by one.
Its head office is in London, and its main markets are the UK, the US and Hong Kong. The company says it has more than 30 offices worldwide, though the pages we read did not list where the UK ones are. Wikipedia records a Rail Innovation Centre in Derby, opened in 2019, and the company is a member of industry groups including the Civil Engineering Contractors Association, the Rail Industry Association and Women into Construction. Its page gives about 26,000 employees in 2026, a worldwide figure that includes the US and Hong Kong.
A business of this kind employs far more than people on site in hard hats. There are civil and structural engineers, site engineers, quantity surveyors who work out what a job should cost, planners, health and safety specialists, electrical and rail engineers, designers, digital and data specialists, and finance, legal, procurement and human resources teams. If you enjoy maths, physics, design technology, geography or problem-solving, there are routes in. The company's own website lists current openings in each of these areas.
Website: www.balfourbeatty.com
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