Forterra

A Northampton-based maker of bricks, blocks and precast concrete, including the London Brick range made at Whittlesey near Peterborough.

About Forterra

Forterra makes building products that go into the structure of UK homes and buildings. According to a company profile, its range covers clay bricks, aircrete and aggregate blocks, roofing and flue systems, precast concrete walls, beam and block and hollow core flooring, concrete retaining walls, block paving and culverts. Its brands include London Brick, Thermalite, Bison Precast, Cradley, Butterley, Formpave and Ecostock. Wikipedia says that in 2018 it made more than a quarter of all the bricks produced in Britain.

The company was originally the building products division of Hanson, which bought the Butterley Company in 1968, London Brick in 1984 and Thermalite and Marshalls Clay Products in 2005. After HeidelbergCement bought Hanson in 2007, the division was sold in 2015 and renamed Forterra, and it joined the London Stock Exchange in 2016. London Brick, made only at the Kings Dyke works in Whittlesey, near Peterborough, has been in production since 1877, and a local news article says it has been used in roughly a quarter of Britain's homes. Chief executive Stephen Harrison called it "an iconic product that has been used in millions of homes around the UK". We did not find a formal mission statement.

Forterra's head office is in Northampton. Its production sites are in England: the profile names Kirton in Nottinghamshire, Accrington and Claughton in Lancashire, and Wilnecote in Staffordshire, as well as Whittlesey in Cambridgeshire. In 2022 it announced an investment to raise capacity for brick slips, thin slices of brick used to clad walls, to 48 million a year, and a refit of the Wilnecote factory. The same profile gives 1,869 employees, though the date is unclear. The Kings Dyke works alone employed 250 people at the time of the 2017 article.

On culture, the sources we could read say little. The 2017 article shows a company that was proud of its heritage and active locally: it ran a 140-day anniversary programme, raised money for the charity CRASH, which helps the construction industry support homelessness charities, and sponsored the CITB SkillBuild competition for young construction trainees. Those are details from the company's own events, and we cannot judge day-to-day working life from them.

A building-products maker like this needs production operatives, kiln and plant technicians, engineers, quarry and clay specialists, drivers and logistics planners, sales and technical advisers, and finance and human resources staff. If you like seeing a physical product made at scale, and would like a job where your work ends up in thousands of homes, factory-based roles in firms such as this are a good example of what the industry offers outside building sites.

What they do

• {'desc': 'London Brick and other clay bricks, plus Thermalite aircrete blocks.', 'title': 'Bricks and blocks'}
• {'desc': 'Bison Precast walls and flooring and other precast products.', 'title': 'Precast concrete'}
• {'desc': 'Culverts, retaining walls and Formpave block paving.', 'title': 'Drainage and paving'}

Key facts

• Head office in Northampton; production sites include Whittlesey, Kirton, Accrington, Claughton and Wilnecote
• London Brick has been made at Kings Dyke, Whittlesey since 1877 (250 employees there in 2017)
• Formed in 2015 from the Hanson building products division and listed in 2016
• Company profile figure of 1,869 employees (date unclear)

Website: forterra.co.uk